Bld was blded that day. Our Kin fe fiercely upon us, farmers become wicked wights. Ruin red was delivered onto our Kin-line. Writing — Bi Bridges Art — John Bridges The Barrow Born
How had this hoor come here? Hding the whispers of the once-breathing ones, I had hied over mr and whitecap to Orkney. “A Silent One,” they say when they spy me. Boderia. Gray Mane the Grim, bearer of Bane’s Wroth, spear to spiteful spirits. Theurge to whom the dead disclose themselves. Hogbn! Baow ghost, why have you come to me? My line is lost! Your Kin, caught in calamity... There! Long leagues away lies my mound. Lk through my bones... I s... a baow broken... farmers faen... from the sky a shadow scrching. No rest wi your Kin reap, no slp can you sk, until slaughtered is the shadow.
The wrestlers I sought, the liermates long in claw. The Mactire, duty-sworn to defend the ancestor’s dens. Red Mangler and Stone Face, wolves of rough renown. Do Garou play games when the Wyrm walks? Would you wrestle a rightful foe? Or must brother best brother? A fight, old Gray Mane? Aye! We’re there! The Boarhide clan — our Kin — lie dead. The fires burn balefuy from their blackened barns, beckoning us to red reckoning. A goat sti stands! At least something has won through. Be not fled by its bleating. Hold! Why ki the last of the living? A lich fowl has sucked untenderly at these teats. The milk is sown with its sourne.
The stench! More than dead bones lie in there. Yet in we must go. Not bent on two legs... ...on four we run! The siblings tk their native forms. On le sure legs I foowed fastly. When we saw what waited there, with haste we wore our bale-forms. CHHHHRRRRRR
— a, my Howlers. Chhhhrrrrrrr You have bn promised to me. It is wrien in the earth, in the whorls of ebon stone. Rawhrrr! Hold! The lich fowl taunts you! No lion lies before us! Our totem yet stands. Our totem — defeated and caion-fed. A lie! And yet... a black fate I sensed, a shadow not faen from the sky but risen from the earth. The vile corpse bird spoke prophecy.
Hogbn! Rouse to our side! Hd not the rale of the nightjar! Fight with the Howlers! Fight with your wolfen Kin! Escape the bane’s shadow! Our Kin spirit — coupted! The Kin-line rendered baen. No more cubs in Orkney. No more Howlers to hold the isles. We caot save this place! It must fa! I ca on the ancestors to stir, to rage, to shake the stones — to bury this mound! Cc-rack! KarrOOM! The slpers of the baow, our Kin ancestors, were lost to us, but the earth would swaow the evil.
We’re not alone! The Boarhide clan — they’re fomori! Join your family... you caot fight your own... Our Kin, changed into creatures of rot and putrefaction. Creatures we must ki. Bld must be blded. Red ruin delivered onto our Kin-line. RaaWK!
The spiral road... turns... turns... The Pit is your destiny! ...CCCHHHRRRRRR... The fiend is dead! We have won! No. It has laid a dm upon us... ...upon a the tribe. I s darkne... I fl stone underft... splutChh! I am diy with the endle turning. The lich fowl’s curse... what can it mean? Would that it is so. Great Lion, make it so Yet sti the nightjar’s rale I hear, and lk for a shadow rising. Bah! None can stand before the White Howlers! AhhrOOO!
By Jess Hartley
© 2014 CCP hf. All rights reserved. Reproduction without the written permission of the publisher is expressly forbidden, except for the purposes of reviews, and for blank character sheets, which may be reproduced for personal use only. White Wolf, Vampire, World of Darkness, Vampire the Masquerade, and Mage the Ascension are registered trademarks of CCP hf. All rights reserved. Vampire the Requiem, Werewolf the Apocalypse, Werewolf the Forsaken, Mage the Awakening, Promethean the Created, Changeling the Lost, Hunter the Vigil, Geist the Sin-Eaters, W20, Storyteller System, and Storytelling System are trademarks of CCP hf. All rights reserved. All characters, names, places and text herein are copyrighted by CCP hf. CCP North America Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of CCP hf. This book uses the supernatural for settings, characters and themes. All mystical and supernatural elements are fiction and intended for entertainment purposes only. This book contains mature content. Reader discretion is advised. Check out White Wolf online at http://www.white-wolf.com/ Check out the Onyx Path at http://www. theonyxpath.com Credits Author: Jess Hartley Developer: Stew Wilson Editor: Carol Darnell Creative Director: Rich Thomas Art Direction and Design: Mike Chaney Back Cover Art: Steve Prescott Interior Art: John Bridges, Brian LeBlanc , Jeff Holt, Steve Prescott, and James Daley. Special Thanks John “Howling” Mørke for giving us a new vision of the end of the White Howlers. Holden “Green Dragon” Shearer for showing the twisted reflections of the White Howler’s powers.
Table of Contents 11 Introduction 14 The White Howlers’ Story, Finally Told 14 Before the Fall 14 Their World 15 The Fateful Choice 15 Thank You 15 Chapter One: History 17 Morag’s Tale 17 Time Before Time 18 Ancient Caledonia 18 Ancient Kinfolk 18 The Great Winter 19 Gaia’s Great Winter 20 Expanded Borders 20 Children of Stag 21 Stag and Lion 21 The Good Cousins 22 Fenrir, Falcon, Fury and All 22 Tearlach Talespinner 23 Tearlach And Helios 23 Ancient Times 25 Nomads and Farmers 25 A Tribe Of Many 25 The Roman Invasion 26 Our Folly 26 At War With Rome 27 The Great Council 27 Southward 28 Battle with Rome 28 The Long Way Home 28 Retribution 29 Our Kin’s Fate 30 The Fateful Finale 30 A Tainted Land 31 The Great Pit 31 The Spiral Path 32 Decisions 32 A Call Goes Out 32 Tonight 33 Chapter Two: Culture 35 Our Duties 35 Kinfolk 35 Wolves of Caledonia 35 Human Tribes 36 Tribes of the White Howler Kinfolk 37 One People, Many Faces 38 Breeds 38 Lupus 38 Homid 39 Metis 39 Moon-calling 39 Ragabash 39 Theurge 39 Philodox 40 Galliard 40 Ahroun 40 Tribal Camps 40 The Boderia 40 The Mactire 41 The Toutates 42 Lion’s Children 42 Those Who Did Not Answer 42 Fianna 42 Get of Fenris 42 Red Talons 42 Table of Contents
12 White Howlers Silver Fangs 42 Litany 42 Do Not Allow a Caern to Be Violated 43 Respect Territory 43 Be Merciful 43 Honor Those Before You 43 Honor Those Behind You 43 Do Not Suffer Thy People to Tend Thy Sickness 43 The Kill Belongs to the Greatest in Station 44 In Times of Peace, Weak Leaders Must Be Challenged 44 In Times of War, Leaders Must Be Obeyed 44 Do Not Consume the Flesh of Your Kin 44 Grant The Mercy of the Veil 44 Take Not Mates From Your Own 45 Combat the Wyrm Where It Dwells 45 Dawn 45 Chapter Three: The White Howlers’ World 47 Why Historical Tales? 47 The Challenges 47 The White Howler’s Zenith 48 The World of the White Howlers 48 The Myths of the Picts 49 Names 49 Caledonia 49 The Walls 49 Climate 50 Technology and Culture 50 Agriculture and Animal Husbandry 51 Cooking and Preservation 51 Alcohol 52 Architecture 52 Brochs 52 Hillforts 52 Arts and Crafts 53 Materials 53 Reoccurring Symbols 54 Appearance 54 Clothing 54 Tattoos 55 Arms and Armor 55 Weapons 56 Transportation 56 Death and Burial 56 Language 57 Writing 57 Ogham 57 Cuneiform 57 Phoenician 58 Facts, Proof, and the Truth 58 Ice Age 58 After The Great Winter 58 Modern Era 58 Spontaneous Rebirth 59 The Great Quest 59 Never Fell 59 A New Cast 60 Other Tribes 60 Black Furies 60 Bone Gnawers 60 Bunyip 60 Children of Gaia 60 Croatan 60 Fianna 61 Get of Fenris 61 Glass Walkers 61 Red Talons 61 Shadow Lords 61 Silent Striders 62 Silver Fangs 62 Stargazers 62 Uktena 62 Wendigo 62 Additional Resources 62 Chapter Four: Powers 65 Gifts 65 White Howler Gifts 65 Rites 67 Rites of Accord 67 Rite of the Survivor 67 Rites of Death 68 Rite of the Bone-Fire 68 Mystic Rites 68 Rite of the Sacred Tattoo 68 Rite of Sacred Art 69 Minor Rites 69 Augury 69 Merits and Flaws 69 Physical 69 Impervious to Weather (1 pt. Merit) 69 Direction Sense (1 pt. Merit) 69 Rite of the Sacred Tattoo 69 Subterranean Affinity (3 pt. Merit) 70 Mental 70 Barrow Sense (1 pt. Merit) 70 Homing Instinct (2 pt. Merit) 70 Insightful (2 pt. Merit) 70 Good Instincts (3 pt. Merit) 70 Foul Temper (2 pt. Flaw) 70 Social 70 Pict Kith (1 pt. Merit) 70 Xenophobe (3 or 6 pt. Flaw) 70 Supernatural 70 Prophetic Visions (2 pt. Merit) 70 Ghost Kin (2 pt. Merit) 71 Fetishes 71 Ghost Shield 71 Beast Brooch 71 Barrow Mirror 71 Omen Brush 71 Talens 71 Mad Woad 71 Ghost Tallow 72 Bannock 72 Totems 72 Lion’s Brood 72 Totems of Respect 72
Table of Contents 13 Elk 72 Lion 72 Totems of War 74 Carrion Bird 74 Green Dragon 74 Totems of Wisdom 74 Caern-Rattler 74 Roe Deer 75 Totems of Cunning 75 Gallia 75 Kelpie 76 Appendix One: Sample Characters 77 Nomadic Spy 78 Salmon-eater 80 Eilish Elkdaughter 82 Farwalker 84 Monstrous Protector 86 Appendix Two: White Howler Legends 88 Eubh the Ever-Living 88 Hathawulf Spearbreaker 89 Morag “Memory of Stone” 90
14 White Howlers The White Howlers’ Story, Finally Told For two thousand years, the Garou Nation has dealt with the pain, anger, and guilt surrounding the loss of the White Howlers. For twenty centuries, the Black Spiral Dancers have served as a constant reminder of the fallen Howlers — and the fate the rest of the Nation will share, should they drop their guard for so much as a moment. The world has had two millennia to forget who and what the White Howlers really were. Reality has been replaced by generation after generation of adaptations, interpretations, and — in some cases — outright fabrications designed to use what happened to the tribe for their own purposes. Like their Pictish Kin, history has largely lost the truth of the White Howlers. What shards of fact do still exist lay strewn and scattered, coated and colored by centuries of time and tale-telling, and tainted by association with what the Howlers eventually became. The tribe has been painted as everything from naïve fools to despicable traitors, depending on who told their story. Unlike the Croatan, whose sacrifice brought about great good, or the Bunyip, whose loss was never of their own making, the White Howlers dove into the Wyrm’s maw, and their actions spawned an army to serve the Garou’s enemies. That choice was the single most dishonorable, unwise, and inglorious in the entire history of the Garou Nation. Or was it? Before the Fall Hear now, for the first time, the words of the White Howlers from the tribe itself. Travel back to the beginning of the Common Era and beyond. Gather around the peaty fires, and listen to stories long-thought lost forever, told by those who lived them. Walk among their villages. Taste the sea spray on their shorelines, and hear the whispers of their dead from the shadows. Together, we will travel to the past and listen to the tales of the Howlers and their Kin, told in their own Introduction “They’ve promised that dreams can come true — but forgot to mention that nightmares are dreams, too.” — Oscar Wilde
Introduction 15 voices. We will lead you through their villages, pause to listen at their hearthfires, and break bread with their Kin. Beneath the ancient moon, we will travel with these fierce and ill-fated warriors, keeping pace as they battle the Wyrm’s minions, defend their homelands against all ills, and — ultimately — fall to their dark fate. Only then, can you come to truly know the White Howlers in all their passion and fury, and to understand their secret lore and sacred customs. Only then will you reclaim all of the slivers that time has whittled away, unearth what has been buried, and recover what was lost to the annals of time. Their World No tribe of the Garou Nation exists in a vacuum. In order to do the White Howlers justice, we must understand not only the tribe on its own — its history, its habits, its views, and beliefs — but also its dynamic within the Garou Nation of that era, and the vastly different dynamic between the Garou and the rest of the world in that time period. To understand the role the White Howlers played in the ancient world, we look at not only the tribe and their homeland, but the world as it existed during that time period. We examine the rich tapestry of cultures that formed the Garou Nation and their allies of that era, and how the lost tribe interacted with each of them, providing enough information to allow players and Storytellers to create their own stories set in the ancient past, should they so choose. The Fateful Choice The White Howlers’ dive into the Black Labyrinth is perhaps the single most significant and long-reaching action any group of Garou has ever taken. The effects of that choice colored the next two thousand years of werewolf history, gave birth to the Nation’s greatest enemies, and tipped the cosmic scales in the Wyrm’s favor. History has painted that choice with twenty centuries of hindsight. But to truly comprehend the choices made — and to learn from them — we must strip away the countless layers of morality lessons and prejudices heaped on the event. We must look with unbiased eyes at the time leading up to that fateful battle, and examine the mindsets and beliefs of the Garou involved, and what options — or lack thereof — existed for them. Within those contexts, we offer readers the opportunity to do more than just come to know this long-lost tribe. We give them the chance to truly understand who the White Howlers were, what they stood for and, ultimately, why they fell to the Wyrm. That exploration, in addition to the unique role that the White Howlers (and their modern, corrupted incarnation) play in the past, present, and future of the Garou, makes this tribebook different from any others. Thank You It’s rare to have the opportunity to take a project that has long been bandied about the community as an urban legend and finally bring it to life. Despite being the most famous (and most infamous) of the “Lost” shapeshifters, the White Howlers were woefully under-examined in the first twenty years of Werewolf: the Apocalypse. It has long been our dream to bring that history to light, and to share it with Werewolf fans across the globe. Through the support and generosity of the more-than 2100 backers of the Werewolf: The Apocalypse Deluxe 20th Anniversary Edition Kickstarter, that dream has become a reality. On behalf of the creators of the White Howler Tribebook, and those who will read, use, and play with it in the years to come, we would like to say thank you to those who backed this campaign. Not only did your support fund this project, but also your active participation in the creation process through playtesting, beta-reading, and open-development discussion has made it the best it could possibly be. You have made it possible for us to tell one of the longest-anticipated tales in the history of the World of Darkness. Thank you.
Chapter One: History 17 Morag’s Tale Duty is a strange thing, both stronger than iron and more nebulous than the mists. Sometimes the dutiful path is a clear one: a wrong to be righted, an evil to be purged. Duty calls and we are bound to answer. Other times, however, it is more cryptic. A child may not understand the necessity of a task his mother puts before him, or a student grasp the full meaning of a lesson until long after it is completed. More often than not, this is the way of duty to spirits, I have found. Chiminage is the barter with which we trade for the favors and support of the spirit world, but even those who deal with the spirit world rarely ken why an ephemera desires a certain tree be spared when a field is cleared, or a particular buck from an entire herd be sacrificed. Sometimes the meanings become clear over time, sometimes they remain a mystery. However, duty is what it is, regardless of whether we understand it fully or not. Thus, I start my chiminage as the sun rises and the day begins. I do not know why it is that Lion asks me to speak every bit I know of our people before the new day dawns. Although I am blessed — and cursed — with a perfect memory of that which I have seen or heard, I am only one person and my knowledge of our Tribe is surely far from all that there is to know. I do not know why it is this night, rather than the one before, or the one after, that he asks it of me. I can hear the rest of my Tribe preparing for tomorrow’s battle, and I want nothing more than to be with them, to share in their work, and to lend my strength to their efforts. But my duty in this is clear. I do not know why he wishes these stories spoken to the night, rather than to a student or even a spirit. My people hurry past, making their way to the portal that will lead us to our battle. If they hear anything, it is a snippet here or a sentence there, too little to make sense or commit to memory. Perhaps these stories are for his ears. Or perhaps, once spoken, they will simply disappear out into the darkness, leaving no trace they were ever told. I do not know why, in the face of all we face with the dawn, Lion asks what he has. I only know that I am blessed with his patronage, as was my mother, and my mother’s mother, and her mother’s mother before her. I do what I can — what I must — to fulfill my duty to Lion, as he fulfills his role as our totem. On this night, that duty is the recitation of all that is known of our people, for any who wish to hear. May the winds carry my words where Lion wills, across the Gauntlet, across the miles, across whatever boundaries lay between my lips and the ears of those who Lion would have know this. Chapter One: History
18 White Howlers In this, as in all things, I do my duty. I am Morag, called “Memory of Stone.” I entered this world beneath the gibbous moon, destined to tell the tales of my people. Today, I will tell all that I know. Time Before Time Where to begin, where to begin? As with any story, the beginning, I suppose. Since the time of the Rendering, when the mortal world and the world of the spirits were torn asunder, we have been here in Caledonia. This was our land when the most ancient of ghosts in the deepest of barrows were but babes at their mother’s breast. Before the Great Winter, before the great wars, before the Fianna or the fomori set foot on these islands, the White Howlers lived and loved, fought and died here. We remain tied to this land, by time, history, and duty. Our role has always been to protect these lands, the waters around them, the depths below them, and their spirit reflection on the other side, from the Wyrm and its minions. It is why Gaia placed us here, in the beginnings of time. Ancient Caledonia Caledonia means “the hard place,” and while time has rounded its corners a bit, the name suited it perfectly in ancient times. The islands were more rugged then than they are today, riddled with deep straths and glens, strewn with craggy mountains, and bordered all around with hungry, cliff-edged seas. There were forests so thick with trees that the ground stayed night-dark even at midsummer and rivers so wild they’d never been forded. There were creatures so magnificent they’d make your heart cry out just to see them. Herds of elk that stood so tall their legs were mistaken for trees and birds nested in their antlers. Wolves the size of horses. Lions as big as bears. Shaggy oliphants, cats with swords for teeth, and wonders the like of which have not been seen since. It was an awe-inspiring place and a glorious time, and our most ancient stories tell of its marvels. Gaia was strong there, but She wasn’t the only Incarna with eyes on our beautiful homeland. The Wyrm coveted our land for its own, and did all it could to sink its claws deep. It took advantage of the harsh environs, nesting itself high in the hills, and sequestering its nests within valleys and tunnels so deep and dark that sunlight never reached them. It bred out of sight, using the primal wonder of our home as camouflage for its insidious machinations. It was all for naught, however. Our ancient forbearers ferreted out the Wyrm’s taint no matter how well it hid. The Wyrm was strong, and cunning, and relentless, but so were our ancestors. No warriors have ever been braver. We all know their names to this day. Silverpaws, a wolf whose heart was so pure, Gaia gifted her with a pelt of pure silver to match it. Eubh the Everliving, whose dedication to Caledonia brought him back from the dead time and time again in the service of Gaia. Bran Bloodhand, who fended off an entire army of the Wyrm’s minions alone, even after one of the monsters bit off his sword-hand. Cairbre and Brude, twins so alike that even Luna could not tell them apart. Their strength and wisdom laid the foundation upon which our tribe built itself, and their stories resonate even unto this day. The details may vary from location to location, but their legends teach the tribe our ideals: cunning, dedication, duty, strength, and ferocity. These tales are not only for our Garou cubs. Each litter of newborn wolf pups born to a Garou bitch or a wolf-Kin mother hears these stories before they open their eyes and emerge from their den. Around every hearthfire, in every village and hillfort, children of our human Kinfolk listen with rapt attention to the glorious legends of those who lived and died in the long-since-past. Fierce and fearless, those ancient warriors fought with fang and claw, destroying whatever manifestations the Wyrm might bring forth into their land. Most importantly, they did not fight alone. Ancient Kinfolk Legends say our wolf-Kin of the long past were great shaggy beasts, as large as a Hispo, and capable of crushing skulls in their iron jaws. They hunted with a lethality we can now barely imagine, working together to bring down creatures twenty times their size. They were the ancestors of wolves today, wild and untamable, beholden to no one, and our Tribe’s blood was all the stronger for their kinship. Humankind was still in its infancy then. Compared to today, our human kin were barely recognizable as such. They had no intricate language, no sigils to carve upon the stones, just grunts and howls and snarls. Their minds were closer to that of our wolf Kin — primal and fierce — and their ways reflected those strengths. They had no cities, no towns, no walls, nor permanent roofs over their heads. Their tools were barely-worked stone and bone, too weak to build as we do today, so they carried what possessions they had with them. They wore only rough pelts tied around them for clothing, and slept wherever night fell upon them, calling no hill more home than any other. They left no traces behind them, no burial caerns, no houses, and no standing stones. We know of them through the stories told by our Galliards,
Chapter One: History 19 and the memories shared by the ghosts who walked among them in that long-ago time. Time and the Great Winter may have wiped away all traces of their existence, but it cannot erase them from our memories. Our long-ago Kinfolk travelled in families, much smaller than the tribes our modern Kin now dwell in, through the forests and hills of our islands. They followed the great wild herds as they migrated, bringing down prey with thrown rocks or hardened wooden spears, and gathered the fruits of the land as each season offered its bounty. At the shorelines, they pulled mussels from the rocks, and fished in the surf with crude nets, but had no boats to reap the ocean’s harvests. Life was hard for them — and without the aid of our tribe, it would have been even harder. Nevertheless, like our wolf-Kin, they were strong and fierce. They served Gaia and were worthy Kin to our long-ago ancestors in every way they were capable of, including fighting the Wyrm at our side. There was one foe, however, that our man-Kin were not capable of standing up to: the Great Winter. The Great Winter Every winter is hard. Hunting becomes difficult, crops do not grow, and the bounty of the land lays hidden beneath the snow. In the depths of the longest nights, however, we who live today know that spring will return. Imagine now, a winter harsher than any you have encountered, where each dawn’s light brings only a better view of the endless frozen waste that your beloved homeland has become. The only seasons are the times of bitter cold with snow and the times of bitter cold without. Rivers vanish beneath layers of ice, and those layers vanish beneath more, until the terrain is nothing but mountains of white, plains of white, valleys and chasms of endless, unyielding white. Imagine the winter that would not end. Not for a year, or a hundred years, or a hundred-hundred-hundred. A winter that stretched on, until the people considered even stories of anything but winter in the past either lies or legends. A winter long enough that tales of anything but ice and cold in the future were dismissed as wishful thinking or children’s folly.
20 White Howlers Thus was the Great Winter, the age of ice, the long cold night that seemed it would never end. The temperatures dropped and stayed cold enough that a man’s sweat would freeze on his brow or a widow’s tears before they could run down her cheek. Ice spread down from the mountains, and instead of receding as it had always done, it kept growing until no part of the land remained bare from its cover. The seas pulled back from the shore, until Caledonia was no longer an island, but a vast ice-covered wasteland. Many of the animals and birds who had called Caledonia their home since Gaia created them fled before the unending winter. The ever-widening glaciers pushed the great herds of giant elk away from the heart of our lands, and with them all but the heartiest of predator and prey. Those that remained behind either adapted to the harsh environment, or fell and fed those who did. While our wolf-Kin’s thick pelts and sharp teeth served them well during the Great Winter, our humanKin were not so fortunate. Generation after generation, their numbers dwindled as the ice and snow made hunting and gathering ever more difficult. Many died of starvation, or exposure, or by predators made brave from desperation. Glaciers pushed the survivors across the former-seas into new territories, far from the plants and animals they knew. More died as they encountered hostile tribes from the mainland, peoples who had already begun to develop more advanced weapons — knapped flint for spear tips, knives, and arrowheads. Long before the Great Winter ended, our human Kin were all but gone. Those Garou who remained in the ice-covered areas eventually lost all of their human Kinfolk, as the environs proved too harsh for even the most stalwart of primitive human Kin. As a result, for generations upon generations, the ice-dwelling White Howlers took mates only from their wolf-Kin, making the tribe’s inland inhabitants even more fierce and feral than they had been before. Other White Howlers, desperate to keep the homid side of our tribe alive, began to take human mates from among the people they’d encountered along the borderlands of the icy wastes, incorporating fresh blood into the dwindling lineage. Unfortunately, this brought them into conflict not only with the humans themselves — this was an older time, and the concepts of civilized courtship would not be commonplace for many centuries to come — but also with the other werewolves of the area, who had long considered the disputed humans as their own property. Gaia’s Great Winter When cubs first hear tales of the Great Winter, in their innocence they often ask why Gaia would do such a thing. Why, if we were the beloved of our Mother, would she scourge our lands with ice and snow? The legends on this topic are as diverse as the tribes that tell them. Some stories tell of a pact gone wrong: an ill-wrought deal between the White Howlers and the elemental forces of winter. A loophole in the bargain allowed Winter to reign over the entirety of the year and the whole of the land until, hundreds of generations later, the Garou were able to find a way to complete the bargain and force Winter back into its former and transitory role. The exact terms of the pact vary from tale to tale, but in the end, it is the stalwart souls and unyielding dedication of the Garou that prevails. Other legends claim that the Great Winter was a punishment of our ancestors for dereliction of their duties. They say that the Tribe had fallen away from its appointed duties to the extent that Gaia forced them from their beautiful homeland until they had proven themselves worthy of taking up their task once more. Perhaps the most poignant tales on the topic warn against splintering within our diverse Tribe. They claim our early Tribe-members made the mistake of concentrating too wholly upon the areas peopled by their own specific tribes of Kinfolk. This left an area in the center of Caledonia unguarded, as it was unpopulated by either wolf or human Kin. The Wyrm took advantage of this unclaimed land, sinking its roots deep into the earth there, and creating a massive, festering pit of taint and corruption. Since each sept of Garou focused only on the lands wherein their own direct Kinfolk dwelled, the Wyrm-tainted area went without notice for a long time. Long enough that, once discovered, the Garou could do nothing to rout the great sickness growing there. They begged their Mother, Gaia, to aid them, and she did so, sending the Great Winter to freeze the Wyrm’s forces. However, in order to teach her children a lesson, she also allowed the ice to spill over the entirety of their Kinfolk’s lands, until such a time as the fractured groups of White Howlers could learn to work together. Unfortunately, for the Tribe, this was a hard-learned lesson, resulting in the nearly endless era known as the Great Winter. Expanded Borders Until the Great Winter, our tribe had no real contact with the rest of the werewolves in the world. Our duty was to Caledonia, theirs to their own lands, and neither fate nor circumstances brought us together in any significant fashion. The Great Winter drove us from our traditional homeland, and changed all that. Our first contact was with the Children of Stag, who call themselves the Fianna. Their territory was the
Chapter One: History 21 closest to ours, separated only by hard terrain, rather than by ocean as the rest of the world was. When the ice pushed our ancestors south, they were not surprised to find other werewolves; our numbers spread so thinly across the vast wilderness of Caledonia that discovering a new sept of our Tribe in an isolated area was not uncommon. Finding those who did not follow Lion, however, was a shock indeed. The ways of the Children of Stag seem strange to us now, even after we have had thousands of years to accustom ourselves to their predilections. Think then, how alien they must have seemed to our great-great-somany-times-great grandmothers and grandfathers, who had never before encountered them. Their crimson and sable coats. Their moods, as mercurial as the storms in springtime. Their strange titles and Gifts. Not to mention their associations with the People of the Mounds. It is no wonder, then, that our ancestors’ first interactions with the Fianna were less than entirely successful. Children of Stag Just as an acorn looks nothing like the mighty oak tree it will grow into, the White Howlers’ early relationship with the Fianna was quite different from the one we have now. At first, we were uncertain what to make of the Children of Stag, or they us. While we now know ourselves to be siblings of a sort, we had no kenning of our kinship at the time. And, as happens even among the tribes of our human families, at first we saw only the differences between ourselves, the strangeness of each other’s customs, the “wrongness” in each other’s ways. We were not in the best of mindsets for diplomacy. The Great Winter had brought desperation even to our stalwart Tribe, pushing us out of the very land we’d been created to protect. That, coupled with the hotheaded temperaments of our southern cousins, quickly escalated our first encounters to deadly blows. For a hundred-hundred years, our people warred with the Children of Stag in the shadow of the encroaching glaciers. Ice ravaged the land, completely covering Caledonia and eclipsing all but the southernmost tip of the islands, pushing us ever further into the Fianna’s territory. They rallied their dark fae allies against us, and we called upon the strength and wisdom of those who had gone before us to lend their aid to our plight. The results were, unsurprisingly, devastating. Hundreds of Garou died, and both sides painted the other as all but servants of the Wyrm for their actions. In time, however, the fury for war waned and our peoples realized that we had more in common than we had differences. That and the necessity of survival in Lessons of the Great Winter The stories of the Great Winter Wars are lessons, warning us against the folly of mindless action over thoughtful planning, the peril of approaching a new situation expecting hostility rather than diplomacy. We tell them not to glorify the victories our ancestors won over their cousins — well, at least not entirely for that purpose — but instead to remind ourselves that, although our duty may be to Caledonia, we are not alone. We are but one Tribe among many, Gaia’s children one and all, and no matter how strong we are, we cannot turn our backs on the rest of Gaia’s chosen warriors. While the Great Winter has passed, the end times are coming, and we must fight together or else we shall surely fall. the face of both the Wyrm’s remaining minions and the hardship of the Great Winter urged our Tribes into an oft-uneasy alliance. Stag and Lion Our people’s first encounter with the Fianna survives, immortalized in the tale of the Stag and the Lion, wherein Gaia tests the patron of each Tribe through a series of challenges: wits, intellect, beauty, strength, and eventually, ferocity. As every White Howler could recount, the competition ends with Lion eventually not only beating his antlered companion in the final battle, but also tearing Stag to bits to feed Lion’s tribe throughout the Great Winter. Unsurprisingly, the Fianna are not overly fond of this story, and it is bad form to tell it when our southern cousins are in earshot. While symbolic, this tale is not entirely false; without the sustenance and strength we took from the Fianna our people might never have survived the Great Winter, or at least we would have emerged from it far different than we are now. As the ice pushed us from Caledonia, down into the lands of Stag, we brought with us a rich history, a fierce attitude, and a great deal of pride, but little else. Only what we could carry on our backs, or drag with us on sleds. Those we encountered were much the same; scattered along the shorelines, they lived on shellfish and seawater, hides rotting off their bodies from the brine. But they had a resource we did not: their fae kin.
22 White Howlers The Good Cousins Outsiders often distrust our Tribe for our ties with the restless dead. Fearing what they do not understand, they cannot truly appreciate the import that our connection to the spirits of those who have gone before us holds for our kind. Likewise, we could not — cannot, if truth be told, for the situation is largely unchanged to this day — understand the ties that the Children of Stag hold to their unearthly fairy kin. However, despite their alien natures, in the Great Winter Stag’s fae relatives provided aid to their werewolf kith and kin. Moreover, the Fianna, in turn, shared it with us. However, any bargain with the fairies always has a cost. Sometimes it’s as seemingly simple as a story or the promise of a favor. Inevitably, no matter how meager the price may seem, it always turns out to be more complicated, more painful, and more tragic than originally thought. As the Great Winter dragged on and the Fianna leaned more and more on their fae kin for aid, the cost of their help became higher and higher. In the end, the price asked of the Fianna was not one that we of the White Howlers were willing to pay. The Great Winter dragged on for generation after generation, sometimes seemingly near an end before picking up with a greater fury than ever before. Eventually even the timeless folk that the Fianna called brethren could not weather the endless storms. They retreated, not into the glaciers, but to a place where summer still existed to wait out the eternal snows, and a great deal of the Children of Stag — their best and brightest, bound by bargains too blasphemous for our tribe to consider — went with them. Unwilling to follow, our people were pushed once again by the great ice wall, this time into the maw of a far fiercer beast. Fenrir, Falcon, Fury and All The glacial encroachment did not end when it covered our island. The thirst of the ever-growing ice wall was so great that it drank up the sea that had once divided our homeland from foreign shores, leaving us a clear pathway to push forward to escape its unyielding approach. Unfortunately, as had happened when we entered the lands of Erin, once we had crossed the former-sea we found ourselves intruding in the territory of others. Violent barbarians driven by blood-thirst. Aloof aristocrats, as mad as they were noble. An Amazon race dedicated to protecting women and the Wyld. Mystics from the Far East. Warders in the villages, and watchers in the deep woods. We had learned much from our time shared with the Children of Stag. We recognized cousins among the Conflict over Kin One of the strongest themes in stories of the Great Winter is the war over Kinfolk that occurred between our people and the Children of Stag and Fenris. A tribe’s lifeblood is its Kinfolk; they are the heart and soul of a Tribe. And, with the ice-dwelling branches of our tribe losing their human Kin, it was up to those of us who expanded along the glacier’s ever-widening edge to ensure that human Kin continued to be a part of the tribe. This included both doing whatever could be done to protect our dwindling numbers of existing Kinfolk — those whose families were pushed along with us on the forefront of the ice’s encroachment — and seeking new Kin from amongst the humans we encountered in our migration. Unfortunately, for our early interactions with the Fianna, those strong, brave, rugged peoples we found in the southern and eastern climes were already family to Garou. Unsurprisingly, their werewolf-families did not look kindly on newcomers seducing or spiriting away their Kin, even if the Kinfolk themselves quickly saw the merit in aligning with our Tribe. Many legends of the White Howlers revolve around these early struggles over Kinfolk. Stag’s Wedding. Caitlin and Her Two Husbands. The Lonely Red Wolf. Greum’s Long Night. While they may have originally been told to ridicule our cousins, they’ve become a staple of our heritage. Now, we bring them out to remind our people of the ties we share with the Children of Stag — and the rest of the Garou Nation, as well. outsiders, no matter how different their appearance and ways were from ours, and set about allying ourselves with them. In time, we came to realize that their duties were as ours were; their laws were akin to our own. While the Great Winter may have driven us from our homeland, we gained something on our journeys. We became more than we had been before. We were part of the Garou Nation. It is important to note that this migration did not happen suddenly, nor did any of these changes come about overnight. The Great Winter was a near-eternity; it lasted longer than the White Howlers had been a Tribe before it
Chapter One: History 23 began, and stretched out longer than we have existed since then — lifetimes upon lifetimes upon lifetimes. It was not as if, one day, the entire Tribe just packed up their camps and headed south. Inch-by-inch, over years, generations, centuries, we were pushed from our native lands, and onto foreign soil. Just as slowly but inevitably, our Tribe encountered, came into conflict with, and eventually made peace with, those who dwelled in the lands we now shared. Tearlach Talespinner While our tribe is known throughout the corners of creation for our howls of healing and of war, the single most important howl in our tribe’s history might well be the one wherein a young Galliard entranced Helios himself into ending the Great Winter. Tearlach Talespinner was born on the cusp between moons crescent and gibbous. Young Tearlach grew up fascinated by the stories told by the elders of her tribe — although which tribe her people belonged to is a matter of great conjecture, even to this day. After her First Change, she devoted herself not only to learning those tales, but also to retelling them, spinning them into epic odes to the bravery, honor, and cunning of her ancestors. And not just ancient tales: just as a talented weaver can craft awe-inspiring tapestries from the most mundane of fibers, Tearlach could take the most mundane of happenings and present it in a way that would keep her audience enthralled until the story was over. Tearlach was born and raised during the Great Winter, as was her mother’s mother, and her mother’s mother’s mother before that. Her people were great hunters, who dwelled on the great ice floes that covered Caledonia, hunting the giant deer and great shaggy cattle that were sturdy enough to survive the endless cold. One season, when Winter was crueler and bitterer than before, even the deer and cows could not find sustenance on the icy wastelands. Her people took to hunting the rodents and birds, and then to scrabbling for the lichens and mosses that clung to the frozen rocks. Soon, it became clear that if someone did not take action, Tearlach’s people would starve. The mystics cast their rites, but their magics were not great enough to end the endless Winter. The warriors threatened Winter, but what mind does an eternal season pay to the rantings of mortals, no matter how fierce or brave they might be? The no-moons tried their most cunning, the judges argued on how to proceed, but there were no answers to be found in the laws, and one cannot survive on tradition alone. The weak died, the strong grew weak, and it seemed that the White Howlers of Caledonia might be no more. Tearlach And Helios Hungry and fearing for the fate of her loved ones, Tearlach said goodbye to her pack and her family, and journeyed as far as she could to the east, there to make her one last effort to save her people and her land. Just as Helios was rising over the horizon, she greeted him with howls of respect, as was the way of her people. “Good morning, honored Helios,” she howled, as she had every morning at dawn since she was but a cub. “You are the light which gives guidance, and the radiance which makes all things possible. Without you, there is nothing but darkness and despair in the world.” Helios heard her words, as he did every morning, and being somewhat vain, he gleamed in pleasure at the praises sung his direction. And, as she always did, the brave Galliard went on to tell a story in which the great and glorious sun-spirit demonstrated his superiority to other spirits. Every morning, her story was new, and designed to glorify the solar Incarna, and the spirit was always well pleased with the tale she crafted in his honor. After her traditional tale telling, however, Tearlach continued. “Noble Helios, the ice and snow have driven away the last of the herds, and the hunters have had no luck in months. My people grow weak and starve, and soon we will be no more.” Others had entreated the spirits to aid, but as is often the way with great spirits, they have their own views of the world and its workings. Having heard his tale for the morning, he said nothing, and continued his path across the sky. Tearlach had expected this, however. “I hope you will forgive me, great Helios, but I fear this may be the last morning I, or any of my people, are able to sing your glory and praise your beauty. This tale will be the last I spin in your honor.” This, however, gave Helios pause. While the Incarna might care little for the children of his sibling Luna, he had become rather accustomed to being praised every morning. The sun hesitated in the sky, just a moment, and Tearlach hurried on with her plan. “Which brings me great sadness. Because the next tale I had prepared to tell you? I think that one would have far surpassed any I’ve told in the past. It truly captured the majesty of your brilliance, if I may say so myself.” Helios was intrigued. “That is a shame. I would have liked to hear that story,” he said. “Perhaps you will survive one more morning, and can tell it to me tomorrow, before you die.” This was the first time the spirit had deigned to speak
to Tearlach, and while his empathy might have left much to be desired, she took it as a sign her plan was working. “I’m afraid that is not to be,” she said, sagging against a boulder. “Even now, I am weak, and can barely find the strength to speak. By nightfall, I am sure I will be quite dead. That tale of your wonder will, sadly, never be told.” The sun-Incarna wavered, thinking. “Perhaps you could tell it now?” Tearlach pretended to consider his suggestion. “I suppose I could. But I am very weak, and my voice will not carry to the far ends of the world. Will not the other Incarna grow angry if you wait here to hear my story? I would not want them to punish you for pausing to hear it.” Helios scowled, his anger growing. “I am no servant of the other Incarna! If I choose to pause and hear your tale, I will do exactly that!” Tearlach nodded, apologizing for any insult she may have caused to the great and powerful sun-spirit. Shedding her heavy fur coat — Helios’ nearness was chasing away some of the chill in the air — she began her story. Helios stayed overhead until Tearlach ended her tale, and when she finished, he commended the Galliard on her work. “That was, indeed, the best story I’ve heard. I am glad you did not die before it was told.” And then he prepared to move across the sky once more. Tearlach sighed. “True, true, it was a good tale. But sadly, I think after hearing it, that it was not quite as good as the other one about you that I’ve been working on. It is a shame that now I’ll never know for certain which of the two was better.” She leaned back against the boulder, and shut her eyes. As she’d hoped, Helios not only paused, he actually moved backwards a bit in the sky, until he was directly overhead once more. “Another tale? Better than that one, you say?” And so it went, tale after tale, with the Incarna of the Sun allowing himself to be convinced to stay for just one more story. Tearlach told stories until the ice across Caledonia melted away, and the grass grew green again. She told
Chapter One: History 25 stories until the herds all returned and her people could hunt once more. She told stories until she was no longer a young woman, but a crone all bent with age, and wrinkled and brown from the sun’s ever-present rays. Only then, when spring had once again come to Caledonia, and the Great Winter had ended, did Tearlach’s voice grow still. Helios paused, waiting for the Galliard’s tales to begin again, but there was no sound but the wafting of the warm breeze through the trees, the chirping of the returned birds, and the sounds of other life that had come back to Caledonia once more. Without Tearlach’s stories to distract him, Helios remembered his duty, and hurried across the sky, as if he had never paused. But to this day, every morning, as the sun-Incarna creeps up in the east, he pauses, just at the horizon, hoping against hope that he will hear Tearlach’s voice once more. Ancient Times With the ending of the Great Winter, those of our Tribe who had remained in the ice sent word out to their far-flung cousins around the world. Their message was a simple one: “Come home.” And come they did, from the deserts and the mountains, from islands far across the sea, and from the shoreline of the mainland. As they came, they brought their Kin with them, both man and wolf. The Tribe that reformed in Caledonia was different from the one that had existed in the oldest of times. Over the thousands of years we had been apart, we had grown in different directions, and reintegration was no simple task. Nomads and Farmers In the oldest of days, the White Howlers relied only on the gifts given to us by Gaia to survive. Our speed. Our cunning. Our teeth and our claws. Our Kin, both human and wolven, did the same. When the ice pushed the tribe out of our homeland, they encountered other cultures, many which had been a part of their lands for almost as long as we had been in Caledonia though they weren’t as close to Gaia as we were. Where we followed the herds across our lands, they tamed animals for livestock. Where we relied upon Gaia to provide the bounty of the forest and glen, they cultivated fields and imposed their will upon the natural growth of their lands. They dwelled in homes, where we slept in whatever shelter we could find. These ideas were strange to us, of course, and although we learned to see the wisdom in Gaia with the gifts She had shared with them — and through them, with us — it was not an easy transition to make. While many White Howlers adopted the ways of the foreigners we lived among, when they returned home to Caledonia after the Great Winter ended those who had remained behind were quite taken aback by these innovations. As the feral Tribe members and their newly returned brethren attempted to reawaken long-dormant caerns and rebuild new septs, our elders debated whether integrating farming and animal husbandry into the White Howler way of life would weaken our people. Those who had brought these innovations back with them claimed that these skills helped them in their duties, leaving more time for fighting the Wyrm than when hunting and gathering, for survival did not take as much effort. The more traditionally minded, however, claimed these new ways were crutches upon which the newly returned Tribe members needed to rely because they were no longer strong enough to hunt as Gaia intended. In the end, each sept and its human tribe-kin developed their own take on the issue. Some embraced it fully, and these formed many of the first real villages and towns in Caledonia. Others continued to view these new developments with skepticism, and continued to live a more nomadic lifestyle, relying on their own cunning and ferocity to aid them, rather than agriculture and animal husbandry. For the most part, separation allowed the various viewpoints within the tribe to co-exist without Garou coming to blows with their brethren. However, it also led to a period of isolationism from both the Garou outside of Caledonia’s borders and between the various septs and groups of White Howlers A Tribe Of Many It is strange, perhaps, to think that more tales remain of the time before the Great Winter than of the time after it. Surely, the bards of each sept tell stories of its own great legends and exploits. But those, for the most part, are unique to that sept, rather than of the Tribe as a whole. Since there was little cooperation — or even communication — between the various branches of the Tribe during those times, and even less with the Tribes outside of Caledonia, the tales from that era were equally segregated. I fear that even to this day, many never reached the ears of any beyond the tribes of their origin. But an ebbing in the tales remembered should not be mistaken for a dereliction of duty. Far from it. It is not that we Garou were idle during those generations between the
26 White Howlers Great Winter and the Roman invasion. Quite the opposite. It was, if anything a time of focus, of reclaiming our lands and becoming one with them once again. In many places, the Wyrm was quicker than we were to follow the receding ice back into the heart of our homeland. Everywhere our Tribe settled they did so only after reclaiming the land bit by bit from whatever evil had sunk its claws therein. The Roman Invasion When the becursed invaders from Rome arrived in Caledonia, we did not immediately see them as enemies. Our lessons of leaping into conflict with our cousins in ancient times stayed with us through stories told to each new generation of White Howler, and while we were cautious of the newcomers, we gave them a chance to prove their intentions. We had no idea. Isolated on our island home, we had no grasp how the Roman civilization had grown, how precise their training was, how deadly their weapons had become. We had no idea of the meticulousness and organization of their military. We certainly had no clue that their sights were set upon nothing less than world domination. We saw them, and their lack of supernatural abilities, and thought them no threat to our land, our people, our Tribe. We were Garou, after all. Gaia’s chosen warriors. What threat could these foreign humans truly pose to us? Our pride, and the segregation that we had developed amongst the Tribe in the era after the end of the Great Winter, was nearly the end of us. The Romans first sent scouts and explorers into Caledonia, and then diplomats. We allowed them to enter our lands, and watched as our Kinfolk broke bread with them in their hillforts, farms, and brochs. There were squabbles and disputes, true, but our Tribe was accustomed to those. Our own Kin’s human-tribes shared thousands of years of history, and that time contained as many battles and wars between one another as it did births and weddings. And, of course, we Garou were engaged in our own war, protecting our land from the predations of the Wyrm and its minions. Peaceful times in Caledonia were few and fleeting. Conflict was nothing to draw our notice. At least, not at first. Months grew to years, however, and scouts, then soldiers, then entire armies followed the diplomats who visited our land. They set up camps, which grew to fortresses, which grew to settlements as large as any of our tribal villages were. They kept to themselves, to begin with, offering aid or trade, but not interfering. That did not last for long. As time went on, the Roman game became clearer. They played our Kinsmen against one other, offering protection to this tribe, or aid in the conquering of their long-time rivals. Some, like the Orcadii, took the bait. The Romans offered them protection from the Cornavaii, who inhabited the mainland just to the south of their islands, and the Orcadii were quick to agree. Soon, however, they found themselves “protected” out of their wealth, their goods, their children and wives, and, eventually, their freedom. Their foreign overlords raped all that was good and valuable from their lands and their culture, leaving broken spirits and starving bodies in their wake. Most of our tribesmen, however, did not fall for the Roman tricks, and refused to submit to their “protection.” This refusal betrayed the Romans’ true nature, and they responded with swift and merciless violence, even against those they had formerly sought as allies. Our Folly Many of the stories of the early years of Roman invasion make it sound as if our Tribe was neglecting our Kin, and perhaps by some definitions this is true. If we had been more alert to the interactions our human kin were having with the invaders from Rome, perhaps we would not be in the position we are today. It is not, however, that we Garou were lounging about the bawn of our caerns, dining on roast boar and admiring each other’s finery. The invasion of the Romans coincided with a period of heightened Wyrm activity in Caledonia, although whether the two were directly linked or not is a matter of great conjecture, even to this day. During the time that the Romans began to root themselves into our homeland; our warriors were constantly engaged in battle, waging war against the great Wyrm creatures which erupted near-endlessly from beneath the surface of our beloved island, plagued its coastal waters, and polluted the forests and glens of Caledonia. Great leaders such as Hathawulf Spearbreaker and Giselle Bloodfog led their septs to defeat these monsters, but had little time beyond their wars to devote to the everyday encounters of their tribal Kin. As if reacting to the intrusion of foreigners upon their soil, the ghosts of countless generations of our people also stirred from slumber during that time. Spirits long silent chose that time to rouse themselves and begin to plague the land. Hungry ghosts haunted villages, angry poltergeists plagued brochs, and night-hags stole children from their beds and tormented expectant mothers across the land. Those White Howlers whose skills ran more to the spiritual than the martial had their hands full attempting to set this sudden upsurge in supernatural activity to rights, and barely had had they lain one ghast to rest before they were called to deal with the next.
Chapter One: History 27 This two-fold challenge and the separatist attitude allowed us to reintegrate ourselves into our homeland after so many generations apart during the Great Winter — but at what cost? With our attention divided, the skirmishes our Kinfolk were undertaking did not draw the Tribe’s full attention until it was almost too late. At War With Rome In matters of war, the White Howlers soon realized that facing the Roman legions head on was futile; our kin had neither the training nor resources to stand toe-to-toe with their shield walls and battalions in a straight-on fight. They did, however, have an advantage that the Romans would never possess — Caledonia was theirs. Heart and soul, the land was their home, and they knew every hill, every valley, every crag and stream and stone. Rather than face the foreigners directly, our Kinfolk tribes used their knowledge of the land, their acclimatization to the local weather, and of course, their Garou kinsmen to counterbalance against the greater training, weaponry, and organization of the Roman troops. We raided their settlements, razed their encampments, and harried them until they built great walls from sea-to-sea in several places across our island in hopes to keep us from the toeholds they’d established. For a time, it seemed we might even drive them from our land, but then their invasion intensified. Hundreds of their boats arrived, some as large as a small village, being propelled by sail and oar, until it seemed no wave struck our shoreline without a Roman ship astride it. And this time, it was not solely human soldiers who leapt from those galleys to our sacred lands. Desperate times beget desperate measures, and while we may never know what profane pact the foreigners struck in order to gain the upper hand, it was clear that we were no longer dealing with merely mundane forces. Fomori troops — twisted caricatures of the stalwart Roman legions — poured out of the berths and bellies of these new armadas. Some eschewed the segmented body armor of their fellows, needing nothing beyond the horny carapaces, crusted shells, or matted pelts of their blasphemous bodies. Some possessed three eyes, the third a rheumy yellow orb that allowed them to see through darkness or see even the most adroitly hidden foe. Others had no eyes at all, relying on their broadsplayed nostrils or slithering tongues to relay information about their surroundings to them. Giants, tall as trees, allied with skittering creatures so vile that the very light around them bent away rather than fall upon their foul presence. Where the Romans found these putrescent allies we may never know, but find them they did. They unleashed them upon our land and our Kin and our caerns with a fury our islands will never forget. Their soldiers trampled our fields, burned down our woodlands, and poisoned our wells. They enslaved those that they could, killed, ate those they couldn’t, and treated our women as their own before sending them to their ultimate fate. They no longer held forth the pretense of diplomacy or the hope of peace, and the harsh truth became clear. Unless we took drastic action, the Romans would irrevocably taint our land, destroy our people, and put fail to our sacred duty. We had to do something. The Great Council Our elders could no longer ignore the threat the Romans presented. They called for a great gathering, held on the Isle of Mull, at the site of one of our oldest and most sacred caerns. Hundreds of White Howlers, many who had never met more than a handful of their own kind outside of those of their local sept, traveled across the width and breadth of Caledonia to attend the council. The Kin of the Cerones dutifully ferried the travelers across the Firth of Lorn that lay between the mainland and Mull, and up into the sandy beaches of Loch Buidhe, where the Sept of Silver Horn met them, protectors of the Red Deer Caern on the island. Representatives of septs from across Caledonia came to the Great Council, where the wisest, bravest, and cleverest put together a plan. While the Roman armies’ organization made them difficult to best in a straightforward battle, they relied heavily upon the direction and supervision of their leaders, both for strategic planning and for on-the-field guidance. Many skirmishes had been turned in our favor when we killed the leader and routed his forces in the ensuing chaos. Noting this, our elders formulated a desperate plan. They would take the battle across the wall to the Roman’s most staunchly guarded camp, and behead the foreign army, literally severing the lead officers’ skulls from their very bodies if the opportunity presented itself. We took great care in planning the campaign. The Romans had retreated well beyond our reach, sequestering their headquarters deep in the southernmost parts of the land we call home. It would take a coordinated campaign of stealthy travel and orchestrated attacks in order to accomplish the debilitating blow we needed to strike against their army. Thousands of soldiers were garrisoned beyond the wall, hundreds of fomori, and an unthinkable number of traitorous former Caledonians who had been brought over to the Roman side through bribery, blackmail, or force.
28 White Howlers This was not a job for a single pack, a solitary sept; it would take the entire Tribe. Those who had gathered at the Great Council traveled back to their home septs, and began preparations. Months later, they set out again, this time accompanied by every White Howler their septs could muster. On two feet or four, they went southward through the forests and glens. By currach and coracle, they skirted the shorelines and braved the waves of our glistening seas. Through the Umbra, accompanied by whatever spirit allies they could muster to their task, they journeyed deep into the land held by the foreigners. Southward The journey was long, and perilous, even for Gaia’s own. Each sept’s Garou were accustomed to the challenges and dangers of their own region, but most rarely traveled beyond their own territory, and this journey took them far from the familiar. Forest dwellers faced mountain passages. The horse-tribes lost their steeds to savage river-crossings. Those of the islands found themselves nearly lost away from the shore. As they traveled, they encountered many threats: hungry ghosts and restless dead, Wyrm-creatures and tainted spirits. They fought bravely before continuing their journey, all while avoiding the attention of far-ranging patrols of Roman guards, bands of their formori collaborators, or locals sympathetic to the foreign invaders. Months passed, as the greatest of Gaia’s warriors made their way south of the wall and gathered in clandestine camps near each of the Roman headquarter forts. They organized themselves, according to the plan drafted by the eldest and most wise of the Tribe, and waited for the time to be right. Then, on a night when the moon was full and the misty fog hung heavy enough to cover their approach, the best and brightest of the tribe attacked each of the Roman headquarters in a coordinated effort that left no opportunity for retreat, and little for retaliation. Battle with Rome Many White Howlers died that night, but many, many more foreigners fell, including every leader present. In fact, the Garou carried out the slaughter with far less sacrifice on their part than expected. The White Howlers expected to have to fight their way into the Roman headquarters, past the fomori legions as well as their human troops. Instead, they found their enemy’s defenses only lightly manned and sparsely guarded at every fort. The Garou scouts slipped past the Roman guards as if the latter were deaf and blind, taking over gatehouses all along the fortresses’ perimeter. Once inside, the initial forces opened the way for the rest of the Garou, and pack after pack of Gaia’s mightiest warriors burst their way, howling and rending, into each of the Roman compounds. They destroyed everything within the rampart walls — barracks, armories, buildings. They tore down, burned, and left in ruin anything built by Roman hands or by the efforts of enslaved Caledonians under their foreign masters. The Garou laid waste to the fortresses, and their inhabitants, killing thousands. By the time the sun rose over the razed Roman fortresses, every foreigner within those turf walls lay lifeless, their dying blood seeping into the Caledonian soil. Small repayment against the wounds they had caused to our land and our people. With dawn, the mists, and our packs, disappeared back into the wilderness, and began making the long trek homeward. Those first nights, their steps were light, despite the fellows they’d lost, for their spirits soared with the knowledge that their great task had been a success. As they travelled, their victory howls echoed through the hills, as wolf-Kin picked up their song and set the forests ringing with the choirs of their triumph. Their songs of joy, however, were not long-lived The Long Way Home The first signs that something was not right were subtle, nightmares haunted our campfires where prophetic dreams normally held sway, and tangled whispers of ill-boding passed quietly among the Garou’s spirit allies. Riding on the swell of their victory, however, few of the White Howlers paid heed and their more sanguine companions quickly chided those who did into silence. Weeks passed, and as the Garou continued homeward, the portents grew stronger. The Tribe’s oracles were nigh-blinded with an onslaught of prophetic visions of death and destruction, corruption and desecration of everything that was right and good. Tempers flared, and those who had bonded over their battle grew surly and short with one another. Accusations of theft, dishonesty, or worse flew between former shield-mates, and the sense of camaraderie that had been born in the days before the attack on the Roman headquarters fled like mist before the midday sun. Some feared that the air of apprehension that plagued the travelers was a portent of ambush; they began to see foreign trackers on their heels and refused to pause to make camp, or eat, or rest, pushing themselves and their companions to exhaustion. They crossed the first of the Roman walls, stopping only to mark the carefully set stones with the yellow waters of their disdain as they reclaimed what had been taken from them.
Chapter One: History 29 The longer their journey continued, the more it became clear that something was wrong. As they crossed the northern wall, the signs became unmistakable. Whether in the Umbra or on mortal land, each day of journey became fraught with danger — Wyrm-tainted spirits ambushed the travelers, as did twisted animals touched by the cold claws of the Wyrm, ghosts, ghouls, and undead monsters. The further north the Garou traveled, the worse the attacks became, until every night was a siege, and every pause to rest an invitation to battle. Along the way, the returning Garou discovered ruinous pits where Wyrm-minions had boiled up from beneath the ground and begun tainting the entire environ around them. The Howlers cleansed those they could, sealed up those they couldn’t, and hurried even faster towards their home septs wearing a cloak of dread heavy around their shoulders. Some say it was the Sept of the Grey Heron who first discovered the source of the foreboding, others claim it was Blood Tide, or Broken Top, or the Never-ending Wind. It matters little, in the end, who shed the first tear for their fallen kinsmen, or whose mourning wails, gnashing teeth, and hair tearing ushered in the horror. In the end, every Garou came unto it as they returned to their homes and found them violated. No sept remained unharmed. Every sacred place lay desecrated with the blood, bile, and tears of the innocent. Every tribe of Kin now ran polluted by the touch of the profane. Retribution Regardless of which region the White Howler raiders returned to, the tragedy they met was the same. Their enemies had not been idle during the Garou attack. As the seemingly triumphant warriors returned to their homeland, they discovered grisly evidence of Roman raiding parties. They also learned why the foreigners’ formori allies had been absent during the battle. Wherever their Kin had dwelled, be it wolf packs in the deepest forest or hill fortresses behind sturdy walls, only ruin remained. The fortunate fell in the first waves of attack, torn limb from limb or eviscerated with claws so tainted that no natural creature would come near enough to the corpse to feed on their remains. Corpses hung from rafters and trees, strangled, and strung up by their own innards. Heads, limbs, and other body parts were mismatched on patchwork corpses, like blasphemous dolls puzzled together by a cruel and artless child. Forest glens and wooden fortresses alike lay in ruins, razed to the ground, only the ivory shards of burned bone left to give testament to those consumed in the blaze. However, no matter how cruel their deaths, they were merciful compared to the fate of those who survived.
30 White Howlers Our Kin’s Fate The months their shapeshifting guardians had spent on campaign, taking the war to the Romans, had left our Kinfolk comparatively defenseless. The invaders’ fomori minions had taken advantage of that vulnerability — in every sense of the word. Those Kin who had survived the initial onslaught did so tainted by the memories of the fomori attack, but also by the poison of their words, their deeds… and their seed. Some had become fomori themselves, bodies and spirits twisted by the corruption carried by their attackers. Entire villages had transformed into cannibalistic war bands. Wolf packs that had once hunted alongside our lupus now twisted into marauding hellhounds, monstrous beasts that destroyed any living being they could sink their cruel yellow fangs into. Perfect potential warped into something macabre, our Kin preyed upon the countryside they had once protected; continuing the terror of the Roman’s attack long after their “makers” had turned their attention elsewhere. Other evidence of the fomori’s poison took longer to emerge. The fomori visited crimes upon our Kin far worse than torture or murder. As weeks and months drug by, their bellies swelled profanely fast in the wake of the fomori’s rampage. The things that emerged were neither Kin nor Garou. Poisoned claws tore their way out of Kinfolk wombs. Scaled monsters were born where hopeful hearts prayed for human babes or wolf cubs. Half-spirit monsters strangled their mothers before taking their first breath, and then slipped off into the darkness to find other prey. The Wyrm had taken hold of Caledonia in the most painful way it could — in the spirits, minds, and bodies of our beloved Kin. Their numbers halved and halved again, until finding a human or wolf with our blood in their veins was like searching for a single fish in an endless sea of blood and tears. What followed was a war the likes of which the White Howlers had never imagined waging. Those who returned, those few who had remained behind and survived, and we who underwent our First Change in the days following the fomori onslaught banded together, and set out on the hunt. The Fateful Finale I wish I could say that all that comes after was a blur, but that would be an untruth. I remember it all succinctly: every battle, every enemy, and every blow of the horrible years that would follow. We unleashed our Rage on the fomori with no holds barred. We lived lives of revenge Morag’s Tale It is here that my role as a teller of legends ends, and my place as a speaker of what I have seen begins, for my own past, before my First Change, is a mystery to me. I was born, for all intents and purposes, out of the Rage-filled frenzy. My nursery was the ruin of a place I cannot remember, bloodstained, and littered with the corpses of those whose names I cannot recall. This burden I bear, for remembering all that comes later. This is the price I pay, for never being able to forget. until we were certain that every tainted monster was purged from our land and our lives — though not from our memories. We lost many in those years, more by far than in the attack on the Roman headquarters. Yet not a one of us who fell died with regret in our hearts. The price was not too high when measured against all the wrong inflicted. The fomori’s damage, however, did not end when their lives did. It still fell to us to police the evils they had created, striking down our own Kin they had corrupted into something irredeemable, and the half-spawn monsters born of the fomori’s violation. With heavy hearts, we took to this task, but it sapped our will. Each blow against our turned Kin broke our spirits in ways that the destruction of their makers never could have. This grim duty continued far longer than anyone could have anticipated, longer perhaps than any Tribe could weather. Years after the fomori were no more; our tainted Kin still gave birth to their spawn with heartrending frequency. The Wyrm’s stain ran deep, and our next generation died in their cradles, choking on their own misshapen tongues or strangled by terrified parents for the foulness of their bodies. Those who survived face an even crueler fate, doomed to madness, even as children. To depravity made all the fouler by their youth. To corruption. To taint. We bore the destruction of our Kin like iron cloaks around our shoulders, garments woven of guilt and pain that no amount of time passing could allow us to put aside. Still, even after we had we slain our enemies and returned our sullied Kin to the cycle once more, even as our hearts were broken and our spirits bowed, even then our work was far from finished. Just as our families had been defiled, so had our land.
Chapter One: History 31 Over the weeks, months, and years that followed, we did what we could to right the wrongs. But even the heroes of old, the legends of our mythic eras, had not been fierce enough to utterly destroy the wrongs they held, nor were the greatest of our Tribe’s spirit-workers strong enough to bend their denizens to the causes of what was good and right. We now, with bodies wounded and souls scarred, did what we could. We worked together in a way that our Tribe had rarely managed in the past, no longer divided by the diversity of our Kin and clansmen, but united in the enormity of our pain and loss. We formed great packs with more members than even an entire sept would have rallied before and hunted the evils back to their lairs, destroying and imprisoning them before moving on to the next in a seemingly endless sea of targets. We moved ever northward, hoping against hope to sweep our land clean of the taint that had infected it while we pursued our shortsighted campaign against the Roman leaders. It was to there, along the northwestern coast, that we tracked the last of the Banes: further north than the sacred caerns of the Cerones, further west than holdings of the all-seeing Smertae. In a desolate wasteland of jagged rocks and pounding surf, where no living thing survived the hostile marriage of land and sea, and where only storms and nightmares were born, we found the Pit. The Great Pit It is the Wyrm’s way to lurk beneath the ground. Our land held many labyrinthine caverns and tunnels beneath its surface, and we rooted out the Wyrm’s minions below the surface as easily as above. But this? This was different. We fought our way into the Pit, slaying foul spirits and twisted monsters alike. The stone walls rang with our battle cries and the screams of our enemies. The scrabble-soil beneath our feet ran red with their blood and black with the filth they shed as their evil lives ended on our claws and blades. Deeper and deeper beneath the surface we went, far further than any of us had ever traveled underground. Their forces grew stronger as we went, and many of our heroes fell as we made our way down into the very bowels of the earth. Finally, the last of our enemies fell, and the tunnel fell silent along with it. A few feet further, just beyond the battle, the narrow passage opened onto a chamber. In that chamber was a portal of swirling colors too dark to truly discern. Even as we watched, it waxed and waned, shining like an oily bubble that could, at any moment, pop and release whatever lay beyond. We entered the chamber, cautious for a trap, and approached the portal even more cautiously. Our seers Minion or Master? I speak of the fomori as the Romans’ minions, as they appeared to us in the Legion’s ranks. However, many feel the situation is not as it first was taken to be. The Roman army, with its lines and organization beyond all human measure, spoke heavily of the Weaver’s influence even if they were not aware of what it was they served. If legends are true, something changed within the foreigner’s base nature when the fomori arrived. Chaos crept in amongst the formerly restrained ranks. Soldiers mutinied and rebelled where they had never dared before. Corruption raised its filthy head, higher even than the eagle banners the armies bore forth. Did the Romans let the Wyrm into their ranks by recruiting the fallen fomori warriors into their army? Were the fomori the rust eating away at the steel of their Legion from the inside out? Or was it the Romans who came to serve the forces of evil first, giving in to the Wyrm’s siren song and then recruiting some of its strongest minions to their aid? It matters little in the end, I suppose, for the result was the same. The Legion turned to the Wyrm, and Caledonia bore the brunt of the new alliance. And, no matter how wounded we were, of body or spirit, our duty called us to cleanse it. A Tainted Land The Romans’ minions had struck deep into the heart of our homeland, breaching the forbidden shrines and profane places that our Tribe had spent thousands of years sealing away. They tore open every dark spot, every ill too great to cleanse completely, every Bane breeding ground previously closed off for an eternity, and the spiritual pollution ran in rivers of ichor and taint across the land. The ground itself wept at their desecration, sinking into cavernous maws that consumed entire valleys or tearing itself apart with the fervor of its sorrow, leaving subterranean gashes extending far underground. From those deep places emerged a host of Banes and beings that only the most depraved soul could have ever imagined into being.
32 White Howlers and those adept with the sight spoke of the foulness of this place, and even worse lay beyond. The sigils around the portal drove one Theurge mad, frothing at the mouth like a rabid dog. The others increased their care, fearful of sharing his fate. Still, the need to know what lay beyond, what was at the heart of this pit, drove them onward. While they worked, we gathered around the portal. Some came close out of morbid curiosity, others hoped to protect the seers from whatever might emerge should the portal’s barrier fail while they worked their magics. We gathered close, as if unable to stay away. Close enough to see hear whispers from the other side. Close enough to feel a phantom breeze, cold as the Great Winter and lifeless as the grave. Close enough to catch glimpses of what lay beyond that swirling portal — darkness, the kind that seemed to consume all light, and somewhere in that gloom, a spiral the likes of which none had ever seen before. The Theurges consulted their ancestors; spoke to what spirits would answer their call in a place such as this, threw bones, entered trances, and performed all manner of rituals to aid them in their quest. The answer that came to them, while not unexpected, was sobering. The passageway beyond led across the Gauntlet and to Malfeas itself. The path led to the heart of the Wyrm. The Spiral Path I heard many accounts of that spiral in the days that came after. Each tale contradicts the others, not to mention what I witnessed myself that day. Some spoke of an oily river, circling downward into the belly of oblivion. Others saw a pathway gleaming like obsidian, every inch sharper and more jagged than the ones before. One seer, known for her adept work with the spirits of the restless dead, said she saw a shroud beneath which screamed countless souls damned to eternal darkness. She thought she recognized some of the voices, and the very idea set a white streak in her hair that was not there before we entered the cavern. As for me, perhaps it was some trick of the darkness, or my imagination playing tricks, but I saw neither stone nor water in that glistening spiral. I saw a serpent, gleaming and slick, its scales each bigger than one of the Roman soldier’s shields. It writhed and twisted sinuously, inviting me to tread the deadly pathway down its spine into the obscurity at its center. Somewhere, down further than it was possible to see, I swear that I could sense the languid blink of a hooded eyelid, and the gleam of venom dripping from an onyx fang. Decisions Some sought to enter the portal that day. They howled, frothed, and snarled that this was our duty, our obligation, our right. Here was the path to the heart of the Wyrm, and we were destined to tread it — to beard the Beast in its den, to get revenge for all the transgressions against our land, our Kin, our world. Others argued that we did not know enough, that we had not enough of our Tribe with us to take on such a challenge. Our pack, although large as most septs before, could hardly expect to slay the very Wyrm in its own lair, unaided. Back and forth, they raged, argued, and cajoled, until to everyone’s surprise — including my own—my voice rang out in the cavern, and all fell silent around me. “Are you blind?” I found myself asking. “Can you think no further than this moment?” Murmurs and grumbles filled the cavern, but I paid them no mind. “You seek to challenge the Wyrm in its lair, where it is the most powerful?” A roar shook the cavern, so great that stones tumbled from the ceiling and dust settled in the darkness, as the fiercest and angriest of those assembled howled their desire to burst through the portal without waiting a moment longer. To battle evil, wherever it dwelled. To gain revenge for our fallen friends and family members. “You are fools!” The cavern fell silent once more. “How can you consider entering that passage now, when the rest of our people know nothing of what we have found here? What if our entry breaks the bonds on that portal? Would you unleash whatever lies beyond onto the rest of the world? Have our Kin not suffered enough? Would you grant the Wyrm itself entry into our lands, all because you are too impatient to think with your heads, not your claws? Have you learned nothing from your battle in the south?” As surprised as I was to find myself speaking, I was even more so to realize that others were listening to my words. All of us still bore the weight of what had befallen our Kin during our attack on the Romans. No one was willing to argue it worth the risk to inflict such horrors upon them again, not if there was another option. A Call Goes Out Therefore, leaving guards and messengers in the cavern to watch the portal, we returned to our septs carrying word of what we had seen. Recognizing this was more than a matter of our own land and people, we sent word
Chapter One: History 33 to all of the tribes of the Garou Nation. Through spirit messenger and Moon Bridge, by runner and horse and boat, we used any means possible to entreat the other Tribes to come and aid us in this, the most sacred of tasks. Combat The Wyrm, Wherever It Breeds, And Wherever It Dwells, after all. The Litany is clear, and the law is not just ours, but given from Gaia to every Tribe. Surely the rest would join us? We thought they would jump at the chance to strike our enemy deep in its serpentine heart? We were wrong. Our messengers encountered diplomacy in some places. Other audiences offered disbelief, or suspicion, or outright hostility. Whether polite demurrals, or promises to consider the possibility, the results were the same. The responses formed a harmony of rejection, and the Nation turned its back on us as one. We would not take refusal lightly, however. We who had seen the portal, seen the pitch-black spiral pathway, we knew what was at stake. Each of our auspices gathered, seeking the Garou who shared their moon-birth. They entreated, each in their own way, to those who most closely shared their duties, sending desperate word across the globe. “Come,” said the Seers. “Our will is waning like the sliver-thin moon, our hearts are heavy, and our spirits are weak. Come let the light of your wisdom guide us through this terrible dark place.” There was no response. “Come,” said the Scouts. “Our path forward is twisted, and we are uncertain of the way. Come help us find the path to victory and to revenge.” There was no answer. “Come,” said the Warriors. “Our weapons are worn on the bones of our enemies, our shields are battered, and the greatest battle lies still before us. Come lend us your arms, your claws, your fangs, and we will slay the Wyrm for once and for all!” There was no reply. “Come,” said the Judges. “The law is clear, and we must obey. Come help us uphold it!” Only silence came in return. Each auspice howled out its supplication, and each was ignored. Only missing were the voices of those whose role it was to sing the stories of old, and to witness the making of new ones. Only the Singers did not lend their voice to these pleas. We heard the whispers of our wisest, speaking of the effects of holding watch over the portal for so long, and of the fates they feared we would face when that portal was finally breeched. We waited with the Seers and Scouts, the Warriors and Judges, as they sent forth their howls, and we saw the pain and resignation in our Tribesmates’ eyes when their earnest requests remained unanswered. And so we did not sing our request to the Galliards, did not lend our pleas to those that had already fallen on deaf ears. Instead, as is also our role, we howled prophecy out to the Garou, words born of fate, and predictions destined to be fulfilled, though we still know not exactly how. “Listen, you who turn your back on us,” we sang. “Listen and remember our words, though you pretend not to hear them. We will not march to our fate with bowed heads, grim though it may seem. Our hearts are full, for we know we do our duty. We shall dance that blackest of spirals to the heart of the Wyrm and, win or lose; we will meet our fate with our heads held high. Our tale does not end here. Our song will continue.” As we expected, there was no response. Tonight Now we gather. Our people: every scout, every warrior, every seer, every healer, gathered here in a wave of bodies that stretches from the cavern to the surface. Because of my duty to Lion, I sit here at the entrance to the Pit, and tell my tales as my people march past into the depths. I will join them, when dawn comes and my stories are at an end. It will take every one of us working together, to have a chance of succeeding. To have a chance of surviving. But the night is half-over and my stories are nowhere near told. I’ve told our history, our past, and our present, but there is so much more to us. I’ve spoken nothing of our Kin, our culture, our ways. Lion tasked me to tell all, and I will do my best. The moon is setting. I must go on.
Chapter Two: Culture 35 I have spoken of the history of my people, but that is much like telling the shape of a thing without speaking of its nature. We are more than our past, more than our present, more than whatever it is that will come upon the dawn. We are White Howler, and to know us is to know of our duty, our ways, our minds, and our hearts. Our Duties Gaia created all Garou to fight the Wyrm and to protect all that she created — the world and the Umbra, the physical and the spiritual — from taint, corruption, and destruction. But our Mother also gave each Tribe additional tasks, ones to which we were uniquely suited, and the White Howlers are no different. First and foremost, we are the keepers of our lands, and our hearts and souls are connected to Caledonia in a fashion most Tribes find impossible to truly understand. When the Great Winter forced the majority of us from our homeland, it changed our people in a deep and fundamental fashion. Many of the generations that came after we returned were spent reinventing ourselves as a Tribe, and recommitting ourselves to this primary duty. Our second duty, no less sacred than the first, is to tend to those who have gone before us but not returned to the cycle. Whether Garou or not, our people are a part of the world around us, and they have a spirit like every rock or squirrel or storm. When they die, their spirits should rejoin with Gaia to one day be called back into Her sacred service. But sometimes a soul holds too tightly to this mortal realm, whether through fear, greed, or a desire for revenge. That soul is no longer the person it was before, no longer capable of reason or true choice of action. It is our burden to protect the living from those who are not, and when possible to return those affixed to this world back to the cycle, that they might once again know Gaia and her mercy. Kinfolk Our tribe does not stand alone. While we are fierce and noble, strong and dutiful, without our Kin we would be nothing. Our mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers, on four-feet and two, lend us roots to weather the harshest storms. They tend our wounds of body, heart, and spirit, making us whole when the Wyrm’s ravages would tear us asunder. They inspire us when we are flagging, support us when we falter, and give us wisdom of a sort we could not find on our own. Our Kinfolk are the heart of our tribe. Wolves of Caledonia Silent death on snow-white paws, our wolf Kin are unmatched for their ferocity, cunning, speed, and stealth. Chapter Two: Culture
36 White Howlers Their fur is as silver-white as ours is in our pelted forms, broken with grey-black markings making them nearly invisible whether along the foggy shorelines or in the depths of the darkest forests. Their limbs are long and strong, and they’re easily half-again the height and more than twice the bulk of the deerhounds kept by our human Kin. Storytellers say that in the oldest of times, before and during the Great Winter, it was not unusual for our Kin to rival a man in height even with all four paws on the ground. While that is rare in these times, it is still not unheard of, a circumstance that has fostered many legends among human taletellers. No animal is faster in the forest than our wolves; a greyhound might outdistance them on the open meadow, but in the woods, our Kin are unstoppable. Their coats are thick enough to ford thickets and brambles like they were passing through a fogbank, and their strength and speed make them impossible to escape once they’re on the trail of their prey. A full-grown bear or boar might be the match for a single wolf, but an entire pack can bring down either without great effort. Their instinctive ability to move as if they knew each other’s thoughts, even without the benefit of any spirit-granted Gifts, is remarkable to watch. Many of our wolf-born number spend at least a portion of their time in the company of Kin-packs, using the wolves’ knowledge of the depths of the wilderness to ferret out even the most elusive manifestations of Wyrm-kind. For all their might and prowess, however, it is not our Kin’s physical prowess of which I am personally most proud. It is their spirit. Their dedication to one another and to their duty is an inspiration to all of our Tribe. Human Tribes What can be said of our human Kin? To call them one thing is to exclude others who are not. They are fierce, save for those who are gentle. They are wild, save for those who are calm. They are adventurous. They are defiant. They are boisterous, aggressive, and full of life. They are curious, quiet, and charismatic, save for those who are none of those things. They are as numerous and varied as fish in the ocean, birds in the air, beasts across the land, or spirits in the Umbra. Our tribes grow wheat, hunt fierce boar, or brave the deepest waters to pull harvests from the sea. They keep to themselves, seeking trade, or sometimes war, with those around them. They are the People of the Hard Land. They are the Painted Ones. They are Kinfolk to the White Howlers, and there are no others like them in the entire world. Even I, who have made it my business to know all that I can of our Tribe, cannot be sure I have learned How the White Howlers Got Their Name The Garou of Caledonia have not always had the name they now bear. When Gaia first bore her favored children and gave them the sacred protectorate of her most beautiful islands, they were isolated from her other wolf-changing children by distance and duty. Having contact with no outsiders, they needed no tribal name to differentiate themselves from other werewolves. They were simply Garou. It was not until after the Great Winter scoured the islands, driving the Garou of Caledonia across the ice to the continent, that they encountered other werewolves. Those early encounters were a mixed lot. Sometimes the Caledonians and their continental cousins exchanged stories and goods, and sometimes insults and bloody blows. The werewolves of the mainland were brave and strong, but the Garou of Caledonia had the advantage of generations in the harsh terrain of their now ice-ravaged homeland. They haunted the glacier’s edge as the great ice pushed ever further inland, descending upon whatever Wyrm-threats they encountered with spine-chilling howls of ferocity. Their bravery knew no bounds; the unyielding Caledonian warriors were well accustomed to overwhelming odds and inhospitable battle conditions. Their ice-white pelts made them almost invisible along the glacial wastes, and their legend spread among the rest of the Garou nation, who named them for their color and their call — the White Howlers — knowing nothing else of their formerly isolated cousins. The Great Winter stretched on for generation after generation. Over time, the White Howlers came to know and be known by the rest of the nation as more than just a story whispered around the hearth fire. But names have power. Even after the snows receded, and our people returned to our native islands, the name White Howler brings back memories of those fiercest of times. To this very day, we continue to use it, with pride and honor.
Chapter Two: Culture 37 of all the human tribes who share our heritage, and it would be folly to claim otherwise. After all, until the Great Winter pushed us beyond our traditional borders we believed ourselves the only of Gaia’s wolf-children. Better to assume there may be others beyond my kenning, than to state certainties that are actually false.. I say then that these are the tribes among our Kinfolk that I have knowledge of, either first-hand or through reputable stories. The information is sparse, but when the Wyrm writhes just below the surface of the ground our duties rarely spare enough time for visiting those so distant from us. Tribes of the White Howler Kinfolk Until the Romans came, we had little use of names beyond the descriptors that one tribe used to refer to another. Since their arrival, however, their names have been branded upon us, harsh reminders of the impact such virulent invaders can have on the cultures around them. Caledones: “The Great Hard People” occupy the center of Caledonia, and claim to be the eldest of all the tribes. Their people build huge hillforts, in part to protect them from the incursions of the Roman invaders. As their name indicates, they are mighty warriors, well suited for holding the line against foreign soldiers. Cornavaii: “The People of the Horn” make their home in the far northeast coastline of Caledonia, where they have more trade with the Orcadii than with the rest of Caledonia. Cornavaii raiders were a major motivation for the Orcadii to accept the “protection” of the Roman invaders. Cerones: Known as “The People of the Caerns,” the Cerones are more a collection of small tribes than a single tribe themselves. Some call themselves the Carnonacae, or the Caereni, or the Creones, but they hold several of the largest and most powerful caerns in Caledonia, scattered along the northwestern coast of the island, and they take their duties as caern-keepers very seriously. Damnonii: Once a peace-loving tribe of farmers who dwelled in the central area of Caledonia near where the Romans built their northern wall. They were scattered or absorbed by the Votadinii after the Roman’s incursion into our homeland.
38 White Howlers Decantae: While most of our people will have nothing to do with the fae Kin of our cousins, the Fianna, “The Good Folk” who make their home along the shoreline of the great Moray Firth take great pride in their ties to the faeries. Epidii: While all of our Kinfolk tribes utilize horses to some extent as beasts of burden and for riding, “The Horse People” incorporate the animals into every aspect of their lives. They say they learn to ride before they can walk, and to be able to speak with their horses as we can speak with our lupine Kin. Novantae: The Novantae dwell near the southern Roman wall, along the western sea. There is some talk of them having sold their children and wives to the Roman invaders in exchange for their armies passing them by unscathed, but jealous neighboring tribes such as the Selgovae and the Damnonii who were not so fortunate in escaping the foreign invaders likely created such stories. Orcadii: The “Boar Tribe” folk live in the scattering of islands off the northeast tip of Caledonia. While their isolation once protected them from most of the squabbles between the mainland tribes, they suffered a harsh price when the Roman invaders set their sights on the islands’ bounty nearly a hundred years ago. Now, they exist predominantly as a farm-slave population, with the foreigners stripping away all but the subsistence-level fruits of their labors. Selgovae: The Tribe who calls themselves “The Hunters” once held territory all throughout the southwest of Caledonia. They took great losses during the early Roman invasions, and as the invasion became occupation, they found themselves largely forced to a nomadic lifestyle. Far from broken, however, they turned their tragedy upon their attackers, adopting an attack style based around their knowledge of their former territories, which they use to harry the Roman troops occupying the area. Smertae: Few Caledonian tribes are as widely known — or as feared — as the Smertae. “The Far Seeing Ones” boast a deep-rooted knowledge of the occult, and every member of their tribe (Kinfolk or no) is rumored to have at least some skill with prophecy, channeling spirits, speaking with the dead, or the other arcane skills. Taexali: We mourn the loss of the Taexali, a peaceful tribe of herdsmen and animal handlers who once lived north of the Venicones. Nestled as they were along the eastern outcropping of Caledonia, they never felt the necessity to build the hillforts that many of the rest of our Kin-tribes dwelled in. That choice, along with their peaceful nature, led to the Roman forces targeting them when they redoubled their invasion efforts. They were burned out of their homes and driven into the hills by Roman forces just before the Battle of Mons Gramaus, where legionnaires under the foul general, Agricola, slaughtered the tribe’s surviving members. Venicones: Of all the tribes of our Kin, perhaps those known as “The Hunting Hounds” share the most intricate links with their shapeshifting cousins. They make their home in the area between the two great firths along the central eastern coast of Caledonia, where the mudflats and estuaries made it difficult for the Roman invaders to strike as hard at them as the Taexali to their north. Votadini: The Votadini dwell south of Bodotria, the great firth where the Romans built the northern Antonine Wall. Their lands extend all along the eastern coast and into the south-central heart of the Caledonia lowlands, although their capital is the hillfort of Traprain Law in Lowthan. Some of the other tribes look askance on the Votadini for agreeing to a truce with the Romans; but were it not for their acting as a buffer between Caledonia and the Roman army, far more of our tribes would have shared the fate of the Taexali and the Orcadii. One People, Many Faces Just as our human Kin are diverse and yet still one people, so is there a great deal of variety amongst the Garou of our Tribe. We are one, closer to one another than any of us are to the werewolves of any other part of the world. Yet, we are not alike as two acorns from the same tree; we share a great diversity of skill and mindset, duty and philosophy. Breeds Perhaps the clearest difference between members of our Tribe is that of our birth, some to the wolf, some to woman, some to the ill-fated pairing of shifter and shifter. All have a place and a purpose, and all serve an important role in our sacred duties. Lupus Legends say that during the Great Winter, our human Kinfolk were unable to survive on the ice floe that Caledonia became. This drove them and the Garou who protected them, their family members, and the Mactire camp, away from their native homeland for millennia. Only those who were wolf-born, or who were willing to survive without human contact, remained to uphold the White Howler’s sacred duty to our land. And for millennia, while most of our tribe was scattered to the four winds, our lupus endured endless winter and unyielding cold in order to protect our homeland. In that time, they grew stronger, wilder, and fiercer. During the Great Winter, only the strongest could survive.
Chapter Two: Culture 39 Because of this, we accord to our wolf-born great respect. We know that they represent a timeless unbroken chain of connection to our homeland and our sacred duty. For that, we will always be grateful. Homid We are, however, not only of the wolf. While our lupus ancestors were protecting Caledonia, our homid forefathers and mothers were protecting our connection to humanity. When our ancient human Kinfolk fell to starvation, exposure, and the ravages of time, our homid ancestors struck out. Leaving the familiar lands of their birth behind them, they set out to learn what lay beyond our traditional borders. They travelled through enemy territory, encountered unfamiliar cultures, and took new Kin from the best of them. When the Great Winter ended, these new family members returned with them to Caledonia and began our new tribes. Each was wholly White Howler, but also carried with them the strengths of their former homelands, and those strengths made us more than we were before. Because of this, we accord to our human-born great respect. We know that they represent a bravery and ingenuity that is vital to our Tribe’s survival. Metis The tenet of the Litany that commands us not to take mates from among other Garou is all but ignored by those who put their perverse pleasures above all else. The very act is wrong for a thousand reasons, and those who break the Litany must be punished for their crimes. On the other hand, some hold to that tenet so strongly that they castigate the result of that misdeed along with those who commit it. Legends say that the Children of Stag kill the offspring of two Garou along with the parents themselves, rather than allowing their Tribe to suffer the shame of such a crime being committed. This is folly. One does not snap the spear because the weaponsmith stole wood for the shaft. One does not burn the field because the farmer has sinned. Our duty is a taxing one. Our numbers are few, and the foe we face is immortal. Any Garou who will obey the Litany and serve Gaia’s will should have the chance to do so regardless of their heritage. Some say I am biased in my thinking. As a product of such a crime, that is likely so. Thankfully, in my experience, most Garou of our Tribe are willing to allow me and others like me to prove that I am not my parents. Moon-calling As we are summoned into this world, so does Gaia gift us with our tasks for this lifetime. For some of us, this duty begins almost immediately. Metis who survive their birth often begin training long before they are capable of shapeshifting. They learn some of what their future duties will be along with their other childhood teachings. When a homid or lupus child is born and is destined to change, Garou who claim them as Kin may also begin educating them on their future roles long before their First Change. In many Garou, their moon-calling is so strong that it influences their lives even when they are unaware of the existence of werewolves, let alone their own destiny among them. Many are called to the tasks that they will follow for the rest of their years, well before their First Change. Without knowing that their motivation is inspired by a supernatural predestination, they may serve their Tribe’s spiritual needs, protect their people from mortal harm, or be called upon as an advisor or diplomat, never knowing that it is Luna’s will that they fulfill this role. Ragabash Those born under the moonless sky know no limits. A Ragabash first suggested that we seek other climes, when the Great Winter threatened to freeze our Tribe out of existence. Moreover, the Ragabash chided us back to our homeland, when the thaw came at last. The dark-moons are capable of anything; their role is to do, to say, and to be what the Tribe needs, when no one else can or will. Some specialize in the physical or spiritual worlds, where they slip like shadows: unseen, unheard, unnoticed. Others hide not from sight, but from repercussion, playing the eternal questioner who asks the most profane of questions so that the rest of the Tribe can examine what it is they truly believe in. Without Luna’s light to guide their path, they go where duty takes them, leading others to wisdom and truth that they might not otherwise find. Theirs is the way of water, and like water, they can take any form. They can seep into the smallest crack, and break open the hardest stone. They can bring succor to those who thirst, or drown those who underestimate their power. Theurge Those born to the crescent moon hold the key to our lives as more than mortal creatures. To them, Gaia has given the gift — and the burden — of truly understanding what it is to be both flesh and spirit, at one time.
40 White Howlers They are tasked with holding the secrets of magic, which man was never meant to know and wolf cannot hope to understand. In their hands, ritual becomes more than words and actions; it transforms the world around them. The world of the Theurge is ephemeral; the spirits of nature and of our ancestors, of emotions and thoughts and forces far beyond our ken are both duty and tool to them. They serve as diplomats to our Kin and kine who have fallen but been unable to return to the cycle, easing their pain and guiding them on their journey onward. They speak for us to Gaia, and Her kind, to the spirits of this world and the ones beyond, and to alien creatures whose souls, if they possess them at all, are indecipherable to any but the crescent moons. Theirs is the way of spirit, and like spirits, their nature is not truly understood by any but themselves. They see that which is unseeable, know that which is unknowable, and travel to places from which others might never return. Philodox Those born beneath the half-full moon hold our past and our future in their hands. They are the keepers of the sacred ways, those who remind us of the traditions our forbearers set before us, and why. The half-moons speak the laws of our Tribe, and ensure that all who are born to the changing ways are aware not only of the words of the Litany but of the meanings thereof. They lead us forward. They watch over our challenges, spearheading diplomacy between septs and packs so that we may serve Gaia without losing ourselves in squabbles and infighting. It is the duty of the Philodox to uphold order in the midst of chaos, and to keep a level head in the center of the fray. They must see both the good and the weakness in all things, and speak the truth in a fashion that others will not only hear, but also listen to. They keep the balance between wolf and man, between Garou and Kin, between the tribes of our birth and the Tribe of our destiny. Theirs is the way of stone, and like stone, they endure all things, and form the foundation upon which the rest of the Tribe rests. Galliard We Garou born to the near-full moon carry a great weight on our shoulders. To us falls the duty of timelessness. Our minds must hold fast the tales of the ancients, the songs of a thousand generations, and ensure that the past is never forgotten. Our eyes must bear witness to all that happens around us: battle and betrayal, triumph and tragedy, and weave those deeds into words worth remembering. Our voices must be capable of carrying the clamor of a war field or the susurrus of a final sacrifice, the solemnity of duty, or the illumination of hope. We Galliards are the singers of the White Howler’s history. We bear witness to our Tribe’s glory, their wisdom, their honor, and ensure that no deed — fair or foul — shall be forgotten. When we do our job well, we set light to the fire in our Tribesmates’ souls, coax laughter to lighten their hearts, and spin sweet balms to soothe their spirits. And when the end comes, our voices are the ones that return their spirits to the cycle that they may one day rise up and serve Gaia once more. Ours is the way of wind, and like the winds, a Galliard can lift a Garou’s spirits up, or drive them to their knees. Our songs are as vital to the Nation as breath to our bodies. Ahroun Those who enter this world under Luna’s full light are a force to be reckoned with. There is no half-measure with an Ahroun, no hesitation, no uncertainty. They are in all things wholly what they are, be it warrior or leader, protector or executioner. The fire inside us all burns brightest in the full-moon soul, a flame that both fuels them and threatens to consume them, should they not be strong enough to survive the heat. In every challenge, be it for sport or survival, Ahroun are found in the forefront, showing others the way forward. They willingly take on the harshest tasks, those that would break the bodies or spirits of weaker beings. In every great battle, every raid, every ambush, the full-moons bear the harshest weight for the sake of their brethren. They are the fiercest foe, and the most passionate protectors, and without them, our sacred duty would have no hope of being fulfilled. Theirs is the way of fire, and like fire, they are capable of all extremes. They can illuminate and protect. They can inspire fear. Or they can destroy. Tribal Camps The Boderia Known as both “The Silent Ones,” and “The Deaf Ones,” the Boderia serve as a direct conduit between the White Howlers and the dead: the ghosts of their ancestors, fallen comrades, and even slain enemies. While all of the Tribe shares a sacred duty to give honor to those who have come before them and to ensure that the dead do no harm to the living, the Boderia take this role as their lives’ calling. The Silent Ones perform the rituals that pay homage to those who have gone before, supervise burials to help
the dead return peacefully to the cycle, and when necessary, deal with those who have gone and yet not entirely departed from this world. The ways of the dead can be confusing to the living. The ties that hold a human or Garou spirit to the mortal world can be as simple as the need for revenge against their killer, or so complex as to be utterly incomprehensible to living minds. Regardless, dealing with these matters is the purview of the Boderia. The Boderia do not hide their camp affiliation; in fact, doing so is all but impossible. Entering into the camp includes a ritual wherein the newly inducted member undergoes scarification or other forms of extreme body modifications as a symbol of their dedication to this path. One of the Silent Ones might brand himself with white-hot coals, and then rub sacred pigments into the healing burn to stain the pattern permanently on his skin. Another might carve mystical sigils into her flesh, treating the cuts with ointments designed to prevent the scars from knitting closed, so that the wounds heal open in patterns of spiritual significance. The Boderia who serves our sept is blind in one eye, and missing both his ears. I first thought the wounds to be battle scars, but soon learned they were self-inflicted. When I asked why he would do such a thing, he claimed it helped him to perceive the world of the dead without being eclipsed by the senses of the living. During the time I’ve known him, he’s also cut off both of his smallest fingers, and several of his toes in the line of duty. Apparently, continual modifications are often made as a Boderia deals with various spirits of the dead; it is considered an honor to give rest to an unsettled ghost by making a sacrifice of one’s own mortal form in one fashion or another. Almost all White Howler septs contain at least one member of the Boderia camp, and members of disparate septs keep in contact with one another, sometimes coming together to help lay to rest a particularly challenging ghost. Because of this, and because of the Tribe’s inherent respect for the Boderia and their duties, communication between septs often rests upon their shoulders. The Mactire With a name meaning “Children of the Wild,” it is of little surprise that the Mactire are among the most fierce and feral of the White Howler Tribe. They claim their founders were members of packs
42 White Howlers who never left Caledonia during the Great Winter, and those who join them often can trace their ancestry back to one of those original packs. To join the Mactire is half spirit-quest, half rite of passage. One must leave all belongings behind, and travel into the wildest depths of Caledonia. Once there, a penitent must track one of the Mactire packs, and convince their leader of his or her value. Few ever return from such a quest, whether they gain acceptance or die in the process. While they do not hate humans or homid Garou, the Mactire see it as their sacred duty to protect and promote the needs and best interests of the Tribe’s lupus members and wolf-Kin. Most are lupus, although they also welcome metis when we are able to prove ourselves worthy. Members of the Mactire also protect caerns located in areas where climate change or foreign invaders have driven away human populations. Some still watch over slumbering caerns that were abandoned in the Great Winter, in hopes that one day our Tribe will be numerous enough to reawaken them and place them back into Gaia’s service. The Toutates Tribal protectors, the Toutates are a loosely woven band of White Howler packs, each dedicated to one of the numerous human tribes that form the White Howlers’ Kinfolk. Less a cohesive group than the Boderia, one Toutate pack may have almost nothing in common with another, save that both serve as protectors for the humans they are dedicated to. It is a point of honor to the White Howlers that every tribe of Kinfolk in Caledonia has at least one Toutate pack watching over it. When many packs sent at least a portion of their members away from their human wards to assist with the attack on the Roman headquarters, the Toutate’s import became abundantly clear. While a single pack may not have been enough to completely prevent the defiling of our Kin that happened in our absence, many claim that if the Toutates had all remained behind, the damage done would have been far less, and the toll paid by the Romans far greater. Lion’s Children The bond between the White Howlers and Lion is as ancient as our Tribe itself. His patronage is the connection that ties us together across the years and the miles despite the disparate tribes of our Kin, contrasting customs, and harsh terrain that separates us. We are Lion’s Children, one and all. It is his bravery that shields us when we deal with the restless dead. It is his roar that we echo when our howls carry across the moors. It is his pride that reassures us that no matter the odds we shall persevere. Lion is a force to be reckoned with. He is proud and strong, protective of all that is his. He embodies our land—primitive and timeless. Those Who Did Not Answer We have only limited interactions with the rest of the Garou. While our travels during the Great Winter brought us into contact with them, upon returning to our homeland and our sacred duty many of us have had little to no interaction with those outside of our own Tribe. However, we are still Garou, and the other Tribes are our brethren, no matter how foreign or strange they may be. While legends tell of many Tribes, I have only heard of a few in anything other than a passing light. Fianna Our cousins to the south are so like us, and yet so different. We might not have survived the Great Winter without their aid, but the rift our refusal to serve their dark fae Kin put between us has not been mended to this day. Get of Fenris Fierce and stubborn. We expected them at least to answer our call. Legends say they never back down from a fight. I guess the legends were wrong. Red Talons An entire tribe such as our Mactire? It seems unlikely, at best. Gaia made us of both man and beast, to watch over both, but also to have the strengths of each. Wolven cunning and human intellect. Wolven speed and human strength. Wolven instinct and human logic. It takes both, to make a Garou. Silver Fangs There were rumors of Garou in the service of the invading army, silver-pelted gentry holding court with their generals and advisors. Surely, no Garou could be so depraved as to unleash the evils we have fought against their own kind? Litany While individual septs have customs and laws that are unique unto themselves, the Litany remains constant. These rules are not the purview of any individual or
Chapter Two: Culture 43 group of Garou to alter or ignore. They are our sacred mandates, passed down from our creator, and form the foundation of our Tribe. Do Not Allow a Caern to Be Violated Legends say that when our people left Caledonia in the depths of the Great Winter, our wolf-born stayed behind at each of the strongest caerns to protect them. When too few remained in an area to protect a caern or successfully perform the moot rite, a single Garou would volunteer to watch over until the end of times. The one who remained behind would dedicate the rest of her life to that caern, singing to it night after night, moon after moon, praising the loyal spirits of the caern. The guardian would not leave her duty, not even to hunt. Almost inevitably, she would die: of exposure, of starvation, of thirst, before the caern’s totem spirit fell into slumber. Even then the guardian’s spirit would remain, protecting the sacred site for eternity. If our ancestors were willing to give everything, even their chance to return to the cycle to protect one of our holy places, how can we do any less? Respect Territory When the Great Winter pushed us from our homeland, we were a desperate people. Driven by our fear, we transgressed upon the territory of the Fianna without respect or thought for the impact of our actions. The harm our actions created took centuries to undo. When we learned to interact with them correctly, with the respect of one walking in another’s territory, both tribes grew stronger for it. After the end of the Great Winter, we returned to our sacred territory. Once there, we protected our homeland from invaders for centuries. We served our duty, our Kin thrived, and all was well. Then the Romans came, and everything changed. Not content to keep to their own lands, the invaders sought to do what none should, to conquer the world and bring it under their rule. We struck back at them, attacking deep into the territory they had laid claim to. And for that action, we paid an awful price. Gaia created places for all her children, and gave them a duty to protect those places. When one violates that, seeks to take what is not rightfully hers, it upsets the balance. When one abandons the territory she has been given, it upsets the balance. Until she restores that balance, the health of the land and those who dwell within it suffer. Be Merciful Gaia made us full of Rage that we might fight and kill. But she also made us strong of will that we might stay our claws and jaws, when it is right to do so. It is the easy way, to slaughter all who draw your ire. This is the way of the foreign army that tramples all beneath its heel. It is the way of the Wyrm, to tear and rend, and destroy. But Gaia does not ask of us the easy path. Even when our tempers are high, when our Rage flares red, still She expects us to serve Her in all things. To take a life, when there is no hope of redemption? That is a mercy. To slay one too far gone to disease or age or taint, and return them to the cycle? A mercy as well. To allow a fellow Garou to submit in honorable combat, or to stay one’s hand and spare a soul that might yet be redeemed? These things are also merciful, and mercy is never weakness. But to take a life that serves Gaia, or that might be turned to Her service? To give in to the fury of battle and cost Her forces because we are too weak to control our Rage? That, surely, is a crime. Honor Those Before You Our ancestors served Gaia and fought the Wyrm, back to the first of times. Without them, Caledonia would have fallen before we were even thought of. Our elders held these lands and protected our Kin back when we were but babes and pups. Without them, our generation might have been slaughtered in its youth. Our teachers studied the old ways and the new, learned of wolf and man and spirit, back when we had not yet undergone our First Change. Without them, we would have no knowledge, no tradition, no rite nor song to teach us right from wrong. It is right that we give honor to them for their own worth. Honor Those Behind You Our Kin serve Gaia, without the benefits of Her Gifts to us. Our young step up willingly to a duty that may cost them their lives. Our cubs dedicate themselves to study that which they cannot yet hope to understand, and strive in all things to be the heroes that Gaia made them to be. These are the ones who follow in our footsteps. It is right that we give honor to each of them for their own worth. Do Not Suffer Thy People to Tend Thy Sickness All aspects of our life are a part of a cycle, and death comes to us all in time. Accepting this fact, and going willingly back to the cycle when the time is right, assures that
44 White Howlers we will not return as one of the restless dead. We, whose duties include tending to the no-longer-living have seen the ravages that a ghost can wreak upon those who still live. We have dealt with the aftermath of those who are unwilling to go on, who cling to this life so tenaciously that they become trapped in this world long after their breath has stopped. To fight the cycle is not only to consign one’s own fate to separation from Gaia, perhaps for all of eternity. The act also condemns one’s friends and family members to the torment of dealing with that which was once their fellow but is no longer. It is unjust. It is unfair. It is selfish. The Kill Belongs to the Greatest in Station It is the right and responsibility of those with experience to see that the resources of the Tribe are used where they will do the most good. A young cub may covet the richest meat for himself because it makes his mouth water. An elder given this treasure knows that the heart will best serve the pack by feeding a nursing mother, and will give it to her to ensure her pups grow strong, and through them, the Tribe will thrive. If danger looms, the elder may give the heart to a warrior, to lend him strength for an upcoming fight. In times of traditional sacrifice, he may give it to the seer, to pacify the spirits of the caern. With experience comes wisdom, and with wisdom comes responsibility to look beyond one’s own interests to the good of the pack, the sept, the Tribe as a whole. It is the right, and responsibility, of the greatest in station to give to each what is mete and right for them to have. Thus do we give the kill, be it meat or magic, to those with the experience to ensure it serves the greater good. In Times of Peace, Weak Leaders Must Be Challenged Even the strongest wolf’s teeth fail in time. Even the wisest mind begins to wander over the years. A tree can reach for the heavens for only so many summers before its roots fail. We are only as strong as our leader. When he or she falters, it is time for the next to take upon the weight and step up to lead. Without a strong leader, we are none of us strong. In Times of War, Leaders Must Be Obeyed We are Gaia’s warriors, but any warrior is only as strong as his focus. Even the greatest hero may be brought down, if distracted from the task at hand. Our strength is in working together, as a pack, a sept, and a Tribe. Gaia created us to cooperate. When our focus should be on Her enemies, we serve Her best by ignoring our petty differences, at least for a time. If we are nipping at our leaders’ heels, distracting him from their duties out of our own desires for power, we serve the enemy. Let us not do the Wyrm’s work for it. Do Not Consume the Flesh of Your Kin Man and wolf are our kin. We ask of them a sacred duty: to ensure that the Garou will continue. Without them, we cannot do what Gaia has set before us, and our numbers would dwindle to nothing. But, this duty must be given freely. We are no fomori, to plant seeds in force and fear. We have seen what comes of those breedings; not only the profane offspring, but the harm done to the hearts, minds, and bodies of those who are taken. We are no monsters to do the same. The wolf cannot lie with the deer then feast upon it when morning comes. What deer would go willingly, knowing the wolf has eaten its fellows? If our Kin believe that we see them as nothing but prey, as fodder for our bellies as well as our loins, how could they do their duty to us and to Gaia? They must know they are safe, that they are respected, and that they are valued. Only then, can they and we with them fulfill their sacred duties. Grant The Mercy of the Veil There was a time when the Garou culled humanity, like a shepherd does his flock. When we played with our human Kin as if they were toys for our entertainment. When some Tribes forced humankind into servitude, appointing themselves as shapeshifting gods over those Gaia had tasked them to watch over. Men trembled at the sound of our songs on the wind, for they knew their lives were kept only at our whim. They went mad at the sight of us, for they knew that between our wrath and that of our enemies they had no hope of defending themselves or their children. We broke them, as a child might a clay doll. Those times were shameful. Those times are no more. Humankind’s memory is short. Most have, thankfully, forgotten the transgressions of our ancestors. They no longer remember the wrongs we committed against them. But just as clay fragments remained cracked once reunited, the damage we did remains. In their dreams — in their nightmares — they remember still. We are not the masters of humankind, nor monsters for them to fear, save when they serve the purposes of
Chapter Two: Culture 45 the Wyrm beyond redemption. Gaia has tasked us to protect humanity; to ensure that Her creations, no matter how weak, survive to fulfill their duties to Her. And part of that protection is to keep them unknowing. We must avoid deepening the cracks that our ancestors put in their hearts, and minds, and souls; those fissures are places for the Wyrm to creep in and plant its seeds of corruption, hate, and fear. We have done the damage. It is our duty not to make it worse. Take Not Mates From Your Own Our journey can be a hard one, a long one, a lonely one, and no mate — be it Kin, man or wolf — can truly know what it is to walk that path as we do. The camaraderie and closeness we share with our own kind can be easily mistaken for other things, and the influences of corruption, depravity, and wrongful urges are always alert for the opportunity to creep in and wreak havoc. However, the price of succumbing to those urges is death. Not the death of the individual, although often that comes when metis are born, but the death of our entire tribe. Our Kin are our lifeblood, the force that connects us not only to Caledonia but also to Gaia with every new generation born. To turn our back on that is to turn our back on our duty, our soul, and our tribe. Combat the Wyrm Where It Dwells This tenet of the Litany is at the root of all we are, and all we do. While other parts explain how we go about our daily lives or command us to avoid actions that would harm the tribe or the world around us, this one gives us our duty. We were made to follow this rule, to combat the Wyrm. Until the Wyrm is dead — or we are — we shall continue to fight it. It is for this that we called to every werewolf we knew when we found the Black Spiral. It is for this that we prepare to enter the portal and beard the Wyrm in its den. It is for this that we live. And when the time comes, it is for this that we will die. Dawn As Lion has tasked me, so have I obeyed. I have told all that I know, of my people, our history, our deeds, and our ways. The sun is rising, and my story is done. I can only hope that whatever awaits us on the other side of morning, some will live to continue our tales.
Chapter Three: The White Howlers' World 47 Why Historical Tales? Certain locations and times carry their own emotional atmosphere, the harried streets of World War II London, for example, or the unexplored wildernesses of Expansion Era America. The time and place a chronicle is set in can reinforce the overarching theme, just by virtue of that setting’s inherent atmosphere. As well, sometimes a certain period is the best one in which to tell a particular story. When there is a significant change in character types, setting a game before or after that modification affects the reality of the characters and the world they exist within. Stories focusing on the core aspects of the Warders of Men, the Garou who became the Tetrasomians, who in turn became the Iron Riders, who eventually became the Glass Walkers, are best set in the backdrop of antiquity, for example. Telling a story of the Warders of Men in the Middle Ages or modern times changes the basic nature of who the Warders of Men are, and thus is a different kind of story. Similarly, a White Howler chronicle set during the French Revolution, while potentially entertaining, portray the White Howlers far differently than they are represented within the canon material. The Challenges Stories set in historic eras pose a unique set of challenges for Storytellers and players alike. When running games in a modern setting, the “hows,” “whys,” and “wheres” are often well known enough to require little in the way of research or information sharing. Alternate history or original settings allow the troupe full creative freedom to build the world they want from the ground up. Historic settings, on the other hand, require research to get right. Most people aren’t overly familiar with the actual facts about the times thousands of years in the past. Only a dozen people may have access to the documentation for an archeological dig on second century A.D. Scottish settlement, but millions have read Conan stories or Discworld books that feature fictionalized versions of the Picts. Fantasy novels, legends, folklore, and pseudohistoric movies often color our perceptions of what the days gone by were like, resulting in “common knowledge” that is more fiction than fact. As well, when dealing with long-ago times and far-away places with no real frame of reference, different eras and locations can blur together. This can create a faux amalgam of very different cultures, the equivalent of a modern US soldier wearing the uniform of a nineteenth century Mexican soldier while wielding a Civil War saber and a Chapter Three: The White Howlers’ World
48 White Howlers A Different History While the focus of this chapter is on running a White Howler campaign set during a particular period, not all Storytellers and players are going to want to hold themselves to this. Some folks always want to create something unique and different with the core ideas of a game. This isn’t a bad thing; thinking outside the box can be an exciting way to turn familiar material into something new and innovative, and we encourage Storytellers to create the setting and story arcs that best suit their player group and play style. For some starting points, check out “Facts, Proof, and the Truth” p. 58, for suggestions on how to do just that with the White Howlers, Caledonia, and the Late Iron Age in the World of Darkness. French Revolution dueling pistol. While entertaining, this sort of meshing doesn’t provide a strong atmosphere for a campaign focusing on any of those eras. The White Howler’s Zenith In order to help Storytellers and players with exploring the White Howlers rise and fall, this section introduces an Iron Age historic campaign. By summing up and presenting a very brief and general glimpse of life immediately before the White Howler’s fall, it paves the way for campaigns that are unique to the Tribe setting and allows Storytellers the tools to build their own take on this time without drowning in academic research. In presenting a brief glimpse at this era and locale, we also want to help demonstrate why the Tribe was so dedicated to their duty. It explores the contributing factors that resulted in the rest of the Nation not coming to their aid, and lends insight into the Tribe not as fools who rushed to their doom, but as the desperate heroes that they truly believed themselves to be. Our focus for this chapter is specifically on the White Howlers during their zenith (the four centuries leading up to their fall), approximately 200 B.C. to A.D. 200. Physically, we are concentrating on Caledonia, the area modernly known as Scotland, and specifically on the various Caledonii tribes (commonly called the Picts) whom the White Howlers claimed as Kinfolk. No historic event takes place in a vacuum; the Howler’s fall intertwined deeply with other elements happening in the world at the time. Because of this, the information The Zenith While the history of the White Howlers extends back to the creation of the Tribe in prehistoric times, the Tribe’s zenith comes near the end of their story, which is the period just before and after the “Current Era” began. This time period holds fascinating potential as a setting for Werewolf: the Apocalypse stories, as it culminates in what is arguably the single most dramatic turning point in the history of the Garou Nation. During the four centuries from 200 B.C. to A.D. 200, the White Howlers went from a dedicated Tribe protecting their homeland and Kin, to the most depraved legion of enemies the Garou Nation would ever battle. Their contact and conflict with the Roman Empire started a tragic story that ended with the death of a millennia-old Tribe, and the birth of an entirely new tool for the forces of evil. While personal sacrifice for the greater good is a vital element in the telling of Garou tales, the White Howlers’ zenith stands as a haunting reminder that there are no guarantees in the war against the Wyrm. Sometimes, noble intention and selfless sacrifice are not enough. When combating the embodiment of corruption, perversion, and pollution, there are far greater consequences than failure, and far worse fates than death. provided sheds further light on the overall World of Darkness during the later portion of the Middle Iron Age. It includes both human and Garou cultures as well as other significant happenings that Storytellers and players may wish to incorporate into their historic campaigns. The World of the White Howlers Like many of the Tribes in Werewolf: the Apocalypse, the White Howlers are integrally associated with a specific culture: in their case, the Picts. However, unlike most of the Tribes, the White Howler’s society no longer exists. Much like the Tribe itself, the Pictish culture disappeared centuries ago, and left little but legends and a few artifacts behind.
Chapter Three: The White Howlers' World 49 The Myths of the Picts One of the first challenges when exploring Pictish culture is the myths of the Picts themselves. Modern representations of “the Picts” tend toward a pygmy-esque culture of half-fae barbarians, covered in blue paint and wielding poison-tipped spears against their enemies. While many of these elements have their roots in truth, as a whole they’re far from a fair or accurate picture of the White Howler’s Kin. To begin with, during the zenith of the White Howlers, the Picts didn’t exist. At least, humans have no record of a people called the Picts. Since the people of Iron Age Scotland left no overt written record of their culture, we have to rely on foreign reports about them. The first recorded usage of the term “Pict” is from the Roman speaker Eumenius in A.D. 297, nearly a century after the fall of the White Howlers. Before that, the Romans report of groups of indigenous people living in the northern parts of what is now called Scotland, which they referred to as Caledonia, but no references to them as “Picts.” Names While “Pict” may not be the right term to use, it’s a useful catch-all term to talk about the people of Iron Age Scotland. Lacking any data on what they called themselves, the Roman terms become the default for discussing this culture: “Caledonia,” as a term for early Scotland, and “Caledonii” as a collective name for the indigenous peoples dwelling there. Individual tribe names: Verturiones, Taexali, Vericones, and the like, are described in nature and locale as well as possible with the limited information available through millennium-old Roman reports. While these are also Latin terms, there is simply no record of what the people of the Late Iron Age in Scotland called their land, their people, or each other. This is at best an over-simplified version of the cultural overview of the area at the time, suitable for Storytellers and players who wish to run games in Iron Age Scotland. It’s not intended to represent the full breadth and scope of academic study of the culture and time period. Caledonia The “isle” of Caledonia is really the northern third of the larger island now known as Britain, as well as almost 800 smaller islands surrounding the larger one. The Northern Isles include the Orkney Islands and, further northeast, the Shetland Islands. To the west, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, referred to as Hyperborea by the Romans, contain hundreds of islands and several thousand square miles of land. The Fianna homeland is less than 20 miles to the southwest across the North Channel, while Fenrir territory lays almost 200 miles northeast, separated by the North Sea. The Caledonian coastline is dramatic, containing many firths (narrow bays carved by glaciers and erosion), estuaries, straits, and inlets. Many of the beaches are stony rather than sandy and full of hidden rocky coves, sea caves, and cliffs. Caledonia has two distinct terrain regions. The Highlands contain several mountain ranges that traverse the northern portion of Caledonia, running in a roughly southwest-to-northeast diagonal across the island. The Lowlands to the south, on the other hand, are less mountainous. This made them better suited for agriculture, and a more populous region in general. The terrain of Caledonia provides a plethora of plot opportunities. Septs separated by environmental barriers develop different traditions and hold their own views on which tenets of the Litany are most important. Sea-focused populations develop very different seasonal rituals and rites than inlanders or mountain folk. Garou with warrior Kin likely have very different views than those whose people are pastoral. How does this diversity within the Tribe affect Tribal politics? How do inter-sept relationships react when an outside threat such as the Roman invasion comes into play? The Walls During their invasion and occupation of Caledonia, the Roman Empire built two major stone and turf walls across the width of the island. These walls and the fortresses situated every mile or so along them, helped provide a defense against retaliation from the northern tribes, and established the boundaries of the Romanheld Britannia to the south. As well, they forced traffic between Caledonia and Britannia to pass through specific points, which allowed the Empire to regulate trade and levy taxes on commerce flowing between the two areas. They first began Hadrian’s Wall in A.D. 122, under the rule of Emperor Hadrian, and finished in A.D. 128. It stretches more than 70 miles long, on an east-west route from the Roman fort of Segendunum on the eastern coast to the Solway Firth in the west. Roman fortresses were built every mile or so along the wall, making this the most heavily fortified border in the entire Roman Empire. The Antoine Wall lies approximately a hundred miles north of Hadrian ’s Wall, and embodies the furthest northern reaches of the Roman Empire. Construction on this wall began in A.D. 142 under Emperor Antoninus